SPEECH 


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lR.   SLADE.   OF  VERMONT, 


A    PROTECTING    TARIFF, 

Delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  December  20,  1841. 


The  question  being  upon  the  proposition  of  Mr.  ATHEHTON,  of  New  Hampshire,  to  amend  the 
resolution  for  referring  so  much  of  the  President's  megeage  ns  related  to  the  tariff  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Manufacture?,  l>y  referring  the  same  to  the  Commiltee  of  Ways  and  Means — 

Mr.  SLADE  rose  and  said,  that  he  felt  urged  by  peculiar  considerations  to  address  the  House 
upon  the  question  raised  by  the  motion  of  the  gentleman  from  New  Hampshire.  It  was  proposed 
!o  take  away  from  the  Committee  on  Manufactures  the  consideration  of  a  subject  which  had  long 
been  regarded  as  appropriately  belonging  to  it,  and  to  transfer  it  to  another  committee.  Placed  as  he 
had  been,  by  the  Speaker,  on  the  Committee  on  Manufactures,  he  felt  it  ID  he  somewhat  incumbent 
on  him  to  vindicate  the  claim  of  that  committee,  in  behalf  of  the  maHufacturing  interest?,  to  the 
consideration  of  lhat  part  of  the  President's  message  referred  to  in  the  resolution.  Besides  this, 
Mr.  S.  said  he  represented  a  constituency  having  a  deep  interest  in  the  question  which  had  been 
drawn  into  discussion,  and  who,  of  course,  looked  to  him  to  defend  that  interest,  whenever  it 
should  be  brought  under  consideration.  He  felt,  also,  under  high  obligations,  from  the  fact  that 
the  Legislature  of  the  State  which  he  in  part  represented  had,  at  their  late  session,  passed  reso- 
lutions strongly  approving  of  the  protective  system,  and  instructing  the  Senators  and  requesting 
the  Representatives  of  that  State,  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  to  use  all  honorable  means 
to  sustain  it.  These  resolutions,  Mr.  S.  said,  he  held  in  his  hand  ;  and,  as  they  furnished  an  ex- 
cellent summary  of  the  arguments  in  favor  of  the  protective  policy,  he  desired  to  make  them  a  part 
of  his  speech,  and  would  therefore  send  them  to  the  Clerk,  that  they  might  be  read. 

The  resolutions  were  here  read  by  the  Clerk,  as  follows : 

"  Resolved  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Stale  of  Vermont,  as  follows,  to  wit : 

"1.  Resolved,  That  labor,  b«th  menial  and  corporeal,  is  not  only  the  most  honorable  means,  but  the  only  true 
source  of  wealth. 

"  2.  Resolved,  -  That  it  is  the  duty  of  our  Government,  at  all  times,  to  protect  and  encourage  the  industry  of  our  citi- 
zens, by  making  and  enforcing  such  a  tariff  of  protective  duties  as  will  secure  our  home  markets  from  the  desperate 
and  disastrous  floodings  of  foreign  competition. 

"3.  Resolved,  That  we  reeard  the  riclit  lo  enjoy  the  products  of  our  soil  and  labor  as  sacred  and  valuable  as  the 
right  to  the  soil  itself;  and  thai  it  is  equally  ihe  duty  of  our  Government  to  repel  invasions  and  encroachments  upon 
the  one  as  the  other. 

"4  Resolved,  Thai  the  farmer  and  manufacturer  are  alike  vitally  interested  in  such  protection,  and  that  the 
proeperity  of  all  classes  and  occupations  is  mainly  dependent  on  the  success  of  our  agricultural  and  manufacturing 
interests. 

"  5.  Resolved,  That  the  tariff  Iowa  now  existing  are  highly  defective  and  insufficient,  and,  by  that  part  of  the  com- 
promise act  which  is  to  take  effect  in  July  next,  will  be  rendered  still  more  defective,  inefficient,  and  unjust. 

"6.  Resolved,  That  our  Senators  in  Congress  be  instructed,  and  our  Representatives  requested,  to  use  all  honor- 
able means  in  their  power  to  procure  the  passage  of  laws,  which,  while  they  shall  guard  against  the  numerous  fraud* 
and  evasions  now  practised  upon  us  by  foreigners  and  foreign  agents,  and  while  they  shall  raise  a  revenue  sufficient 
only  fur  the  necessary  expenses  of  Government,  and  shall  have  a  due  regard  to  the  particular  interests  of  every  sec- 
tion of  our  country,  may  give,  by  prjlective  duties,  such  a  preference  to  domestic  over  foreign  products  in  our  own 
markets,  antl  may  so  discriminate  belween  those  articles  which  we  can  and  those  which  we  cannot  produce  at  home, 
as  to  eive  a  just,  sure,  and  salutary  encouragement  to  ihe  industry  of  every  American  citizen. 

"7.  Resolved,  That  his  excellency  the  Governor  be  requested  lo  forward  a  copy  of  tlirse  resolutions  to  each  of  our 
Senators  and  Representatives  in  Congress." 

If,  said  Mr.  S.,  I  needed  any  thing  besides  the  convictions  of  my  own  judgment  to  induce  me  to 
sustain  the  protecting  policy,  I  should  find  it  in  a  request  emanating  from  such  a  source  as  this. 
I  jield  to  it  with  a  hearty  good  will ;  and,  on  this  and  all  proper  occasions,  shall,  in  the  best  way 
I  am  able,  give  my  reasons  for  so  doing. 


Tho  debate  has  taken  a  very  wide  range.  This  h^s  naturally,  and  1  may  say  almost  necessa 
rily,  resulted  from  the  peculiar  character  of  the  motion  submitted  by  the  gentleman  from  New 
Hampshire.  Upon  a  proposition  to  commit  that  part  of  the  President's  message  which  relates  to 
the  tariff  to  the  Committee  on  Manufactures — a  direction  which  that  subject  has  taken  for  more 
than  twenty  years — it  is  proposed  to  change  its  accustomed  direction,  and  send  it  to  the  Committee 
of  Ways  arid  Means.  Why  thi.s  proposed  change  1  is  a  question  which  every  body  at  once  asks, 
and  which  nobody  can  answer  without  admitting  that  the  tendency  and  design  of  the  movement 
nre  adverse  to  the  protecting  policy.  This  is  apparent  from  a  consideration  of  the  range  of  duties 
appropriated  by  the  rules  of  the  House  to  the  two  committees — that  to  which  it  is  proposed  to  com- 
mit this  subject,  and  that  from  which  it  is  proposed  to  take  it. 

The  73d  rule  provides  that  "  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  to  take 
into  consideration  all  such  reports  of  the  Treasury  Department,  and  all  such  propositions  relative 
to  the  revenue,  as  may  be  referred  to  them  by  the  House;  to  inquire  into  the  state  of  the  public 
debt  or  the  revenue,  and  of  the  expenditure ;  and  to  report,  from  time  to  time,  their  opinion 
thereon." 

Here  are  two  fields  of  inquiry  marked  out  for  the  committee — the  public  debt  and  expenditure 
on  one  hand,  and  the  ways  and  means  of  raising  the  revenue  necessary  to  meet  these  liabilities  on 
the  other.  Now,  what  have  these  inquiries  to  do  with  the  question  of  protection  ?  The  great 
quistion  for  the  consideration  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  is  a  mere  question  of  revenue. 
It  is  true  this  admits  of  discrimination  between  the  different  articles  of  importation  ;  but  it  is  a  dis- 
crimination which  has  respect  to  the  question — what  articles  of  importation  will  best  bear  taxation, 
and  what  rates  of  duties  will  raise  the  needed  amount  1  It  is  merely  the  discrimination  contem- 
plated by  the  President  in  that  part  of  his  message  in  which  be  says: 

41  In  imposing  duties  for  the  purposes  of  revenue,  a  right  to  discriminate  as  to  the  articlrs  on  which  the  duty  shall  he 
laid,  as  well  as  the  amount,  necessarily  and  most  properly  exists.  Otherwise,  the  Government  would  be  placed  In 
the  condition  of  having  to  levy  the  same  duties  upon  all  articles,  the  productive  as  well  as  the  unproductive.  The 
slightest  duty  upon  some,  miaht  have  the  effect  oi  causing  their  importation  to  cease  ;  whereas  others,  entering  ex- 
tensively into  the  consumption  of  the  country,  might  bear  the  heaviest,  without  any  sensible-  diminution  in  the  amount 
imported." 

I  need  not  say  that  there  must  be  a  discrimination  widely  different  from  this,  to  give  protection 
to  American  industry.  And  yet  it  is  to  a  committee,  whose  appropriate  range  of  inquiry  is  thus 
limited;  which  is  constituted  for  purposes  having  no  necessary  connexion  whatever  with  protec- 
tion, that  it  is  proposed  to  commit  the  great  interests  referred  to  in  that  part  of  the  President's 
message  whose  commitment  is  now  the  subject  of  discussion.  And  with  this  is  to  be  connected 
the  #ct  of  taking  away  this  subject  from  the  Committee  on  Manufactures — a  committee  instituted 
for  the  very  purpose  of  considering  it. 

Hostility  to  the  protective  policy,  and  a  determination  to  suppress  all  inquiry  into  the  claims  for 
its  continuance,  are  too  apparent  on  the  face  ol  this  movement  to  require  comment.  If  the  gen- 
tleman from  New  Hampshire  would  avoid  this  conclusion,  let  him  move  an  instruction  to  thr 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  to  consider  and  report  upon  the  subject  of  a  protective  tariff.  But, 
will  he  do  this  ?  No,  sir.  He  wants  no  examination  with  a  view  to  protection.  If  he  did,  he 
would  leave  this  subject  to  go  to  its  appropriate  committee. 

There  i»  another  view  of  this  matter.  Whatever  may  be  the  appropriatf-  range  of  the  duties  of 
the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means;  though  it  should  fairly  extend  to  this  subject,  yet  that  com- 
mittee has  been  formed  with  no  view  to  it.  There  may  be  a  bare  majority  of  the  committee  favor 
able  to  a  protective  tariff,  though  I  am  not  sure  of  that.  There  should  be  a  decided  majority  of 
the  committee  which  is  to  consider  and  report  on  this  subject,  favorable  to  the  object  sought  by  the 
numerous  petitions  for  protection.  The  great  interest  of  domestic  industry  should  have  a  favora- 
ble hearing.  It  should  have  the  benefit  of  a  committee  disposed  to  present  its  claims  fully  and 
fairly  to  this  House.  This  is  the  spirit  of  the  Parliamentary  law,  which  requires,  in  the  language 
of  commentators  on  the  Lex  1'urliamcniuria,  that  the  child  shall  not  be  put  into  the  hands  of  a 
nurse  that  will  strangle  it.  I  do  not  say  that  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  would  thus  dis- 
pose of  the  great  manufacturing  and  dependent  inturusts;  but  I  do  say  that,  if  it  had  been  mn!<  s  - 
stood  at  the  commencement  of  the  session  that  th;s  subject  would  have  been  referred  to  that  com- 
mittee, ii  would  have  been  differently  constituted.  And  I  will  now  say  that,  if  this  subject  is  to  be 
committed  to  it,  it  ought,  forthwith,  to  be  reorganized. 

The  Committee  on  Manufactures  has,  very  properly,  been  formed  with  a  view  to  this  particular 
subject.  It  is  understood  to  be  composed  of  six  members  in  favor  of  the,  grotecting  system,  and 
three  against  it.  This  is  as  it  should  be ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  the  gentleman  from  New 
Hampshire  wishes  to  take  this  child  from  the  arms  of  its  natural  guardian*,  who  will  nurse  and 
take  care  of.it,  and  put  it  into  the  hands  of  a  committee,  constituted,  to  say  the  least,  with  no  ref- 
erence to  iis  claims  to~guardianship  and  protection. 

Under  existing  circumstances,  I  consider  the  amendment  of  the  gentleman  from  New  Hamp- 
shire, if  it  prevails,  as  tantamount  to  a  declaration  on  the  part  of  this  House  that  it  will  institute 
no  inquiry  into  thi>  subject  of  protection — tantamount,  in  fact,  to  abolishing  the  Committee  on 
Manufactures.  For,  sir,  what  has  that  committee  to  do  to  carry  out  the  purpose  indicated  by  its 
name,  unless  it  acts  with  a  reference  to  the  tariff  of  duties  on  imports?  This  has,  hitherto,  been 


UCSB  LIBRARY   y 


Hie  moile,  and  the  only  mode,  by  which  protection  to  American  industry  has  been  effected.  The 
Committee  on  Manufactures,  then,  is  to  be,  iti  effect,  abolished,  and  all  examination,  with  a  dis- 
tinct reference  to  the  subject  of  protection,  is  to  be  dispensed  with.  And  now  let  me  appeal  to 
gentlemen  on  all. sides,  and  of  all  parties — East,  West,  North,  and  South — to  say  whether  they 
are  prepared  to  come  to  a  vote  which  shall  speak  such  a  language  as  this.  The  gentleman  from 
New  Hampshire  may  be  prepared  for  it.  He  may  be  prepared  to  abolish  the  committee,  and  shut 
the  door  aguinst  all  examination  into  the  great  interests  which  so  deeply  concern  the  prosperity  of 
his  own,  as  they  do  that  of  the  "Green  Mountain  State."  As  this  is  evidently  his  object,  why 
docs  he  not  come  out  boldly  and  avow  it !  Why  did  he  not  second  the  motion  of  the  gentleman 
from  Virginia  [Mr.  SMITH]  to  lay  the  resolution  of  reference  on  the  table,  with  a  view  to  adopting 
a  resolution  at  once  to  abolish  the  Committee  0:1  Manufactures]  l3ut,  no;  he  neither  makes  nor 
seconds  any  such  motion.  He  chooses  to  get  at  the  result  by  indirection.  If  I  recollect  right, 
sir,  that  gentleman  once  offered  a  series  of  resolutions  here,  (the  famous  "  Atherton  resolutions,") 
one  of  which  declared  "that  Congress  has  no  right  to  do  that  indirectly  which  it  cannot  do  di- 
rectly." And  now  here  is  the  gentleman  violating  his  own  rule — seeking  to  do  indirectly  what  he 
dare  not  attempt  directly,  but  which  the  gentleman  from  Virginia  is  willing  to  do  openly  and  with- 
out disguise. 

As  it  is  thus  rendered  apparent  thai  the  success  of  the  gentleman's  motion  will,  in  effect,  abol- 
ish the  Committee  on  Manufactures,  and  indicate  <i  disposition  on  the  part  of  this  House  to  aban- 
don the  protecting  policy,  [  propose  to  examine  the  origin  and  the  history  of  that  policy,  to  urge 
the  duty  of  its  continuance,  and  to  call  the  attention  of  the  House  to  the  crisis  which  is  impending 
in  reference  to  the  interests  which  it  was  established  to  protect. 

The  nature  and  necessity  of  the  policy  in  question  are  indicated  by  its  name.  It  is  the  protecting 
policy.  It  supposes  the  existence  of  a  policy  which  is  to  be  counteracted — of  attacks  which  are  to 
be  repelled.  It  acts  on  the  defensive,  and  ceases  to  act  only  when  foreign  legislation  ceases  to  render 
its  action  necessary.  That  necessity  has  existed  from  the  very  commencement  of  this  Government. 
The  achievement  of  our  independence  did  riot  change  the  policy  of  the  mother  country.  That  policy 
had  been  to  prohibit  the  manufactures,  to  discourage  the  navigation,  and  to  restrain  the  commerce 
of  the  colortie^ ;  to  g  ive  a  single  direction  to  their  industry,  and  to  make  it  tributary  to  British  wealth 
and  power.  The  triumphs  of  the  Revolution  relieved  us  from  the  power  of  British  arms,  but- it  did 
not  emancipate  us  from  the  power  of  British  legislation.  That  legislation,  it  is  true,  had  ceased 
to  act  on  us  directlv,  but  it-still  reached  us.  It  prohibited  our  trade  with  British  colonies;  it  dis- 
couraged our  navigation,  by  imposing  discriminating  duties  on  our  tonnage;  and  it  prohibited  or 
burdened  with  excessive  duties  the  importation  of  every  production  of  our  industry  which  could 
come  in  competition  with  British  industry.  It  was  then,  as  it  is  now,  the  policy  of  Great  Britain 
to  supply  herself  and  the  world  with  the  creations  of  her  own  industry — to  buy  nothing  which  she 
roukl  produce,  and  to  sell  every  thing  which  she  could  induce  others  to  purchase.  \ 

Such,  too,  was  substantially  the  policy  towards  us  of  all  Europe.  It  is  needless  to  say  that, 
under  its  operation,  our  manufactures  languished,  and  our  commerce  and  navigation  were  crip- 
pled and  prostrated.  There  was  but  one  remedy  for  all  this.  It  was  protective  legislation.  To 
this  the  Government  of  the  Confederation  was  incompetent.  It  had  no  such  power  to  regulate 
commerce  as  to  reach  the  evil.  It  could  lay  no  imposts  to  check  the  flood  of  foreign  manufactures, 
which  were  exhausting  the  country  to  foster  the  industry  and  augment  the  wealth  of  others.  The 
iStatc  Governments  could  not  act  in  concert,  and  were  therefore  powerless.  Their  disconnected 
'•flints  were  unavailing. 

A  s-ense  of  this  great  defect  pervaded  the  country,  and  aided  in  impressing  upon  it  a  conviction 
of  the  necessity  of  a  new  Government.  Said  Mr.  AMES,  in  the  debate,  in  the  first  Congress,  on 
the  revenue  bill,  to  which  I  shall  hereafter  refer — 

"  T  conceive,  sir,  that  the  present  Constitution  was  dictated  by  commercial  necessity,  more  than  any  other  cause. 
Tilt  want  of  an  ejficicnt  (jovem/nenl  to  secure  t/t,c  manufacturing  interests,  audio  advance  our  commerce,  was 
lung  ssou  by  infill  of  judgment,  and  pointed  out  by  patriots  s.iluutous  to  promote  our  general  welfare." 

It  was  in  this  state  of  things  that  the  Constitution  was  formed,  and  this  very  state  of  things  con- 
stituted one  of  the  chief  reasons  for  forming  it.  In  this  respect,  above  all  others,  there  was  need  of 
"  a  more  perfect  union;"  for,  in  nothing  was  the  old  one  more  imperfect  than  in  this. 

I  lie  new  Government  was  hailed  as  the  instrument  of  deliverance  from  commercial  thraldom. 
The  people  recognised  in  its  power  "  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations,"  and  to  "lay 
and  collect  taxes,  duties,  imposts,  and  excises,  to  pay  the  debts  and  provide  for  the  common  de- 
fence and  general  welfare,"  the  power  to  perform  the  indispensable  duty  of  protecting  their  indus- 
try in  the  great  departments  of  agriculture,  commerce,  and  manufactures. 

To  enable  us  to  enter  more  fully  into  the  views  in  which  the  protecting  policy  originated,  as 
well  as  to  show  how  the  question  of  constitutional  power  was  regarded  by  the  people,  at  the  mo- 
ment the  new  Government  went  into  operation,  it  may  be  useful  to  recur  to  some  of  their  petitions, 
presented  to  Congress  at  its  first  session  under  the  Constitution. 

I  have  before  ins  "the  petition  of  the  tradesmen,  mechanics,  and  others,  of  the  town  of  Balti- 
more," to  which  I  find  appended  the  names  of  seven  hundred  and  thirty-two  citizens  of  that 
town,  and  which  "humbly  showeth  :" 


"  Th  it  since  the  close  of  the  late  war,  and  the  completion  of  the  Revolution,  your  petitioners  have  observed,  will; 
serious  reeret,  the  manufacturing  and  trailing  interests  of  thf  country  rapidly  declining,  while  the  wealth  of  the  peo- 
ple h;Uh  been  pnxKsally  expended  in  the  purchase  of  those  articles  from  foreigners,  which  our  citizens,  if  properly 
encouraged,  were  fully  competent  to  furnish. 

"  To  check  this  srowing  evil,  applications  were  made  by  petitions  to  some  of  the  State  LegislaUirPs.  These  puar 
dians  of  the  people,  in  several  of  the  Slates,  interposed  their  authority.  Laws  were  by  them  enacted,  with  the  view 
of  JHiUIuine,  or  at  least  diminishing,  the  rage  fur  foreign,  and  of  encouraging  domestic,  manufactures.  But  the  event 
hath  clearly  demonstrated  to  all  ranks  of  men  that  no  effectual  provision  could  reasonably  be  expert 'erf,  until  one 
uniform,  efficient  donernment  should  pervade  this  tcide  extended  country. 

"The  happy  period  havins  now  arrivrd  when  the  United  States  are  placed  in  a  new  situation  ;  when  the  adoption 
of  the  General  Government  gives  one  sovereign  Legislature  the  sole  and  exclusive  power  of  laying  duties  upon 
imports,  your  petitioners  rejoice  at  the  prospect  this  aflords  them,  that  America,  freed  from  the  commercial  shackles 
which  have  so  long  bound  her,  will  see  and  pursue  her  true  interest,  becoming  independent  in  fact,  (is  tc  II  as  in 
name;  and  they  confidently  hope  that  the  encouragement  and  protection  of  American  manufactures  will  claim 
the  earliest  attention  of  the  supreme  Legislature  of  the  nation  ;  as  it  is  an  universally  ar.knowludged  truth,  that  the 
United  States  contain  within  their  limits  resources  amply  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  become  a  great  manufacturing 
country,  and  only  want  the  patronage  and  support  of  a  w  ise,  energetic  Government." 

The  petitioners  then  draw  a  picture  of  the  condition  of  the  country,  "  the  number  of  her  poor  in 
creasing  for  want  of  imployment.  foreign  debts  accumulating,  houses  and  lands  depreciating  in 
value,  trade  and  manufactures  l.mguishins  and  expiring;"  and  conclude  by  prnying  "  the  supreme 
Legislature  of  the  United  States,  as  the  guardians  of  the  whole  empire,"  to  "impose  on  all  foreign 
articles  which  can  be  made  in  America  such  duties  as  will  give  a  just  and  decided  preference  to 
their  labors,  and  thereby  discountenance  the  trade  which  lends  so  materially  to  injure  them  and 
impoverish  their  country." 

This  petition  was  presented  to  tho  House  of  Representatives  on  the  llth  of  April,  1789.  On 
the  18ih  of  the  same  month  another  of  a  similar  nature  was  presented  from  "  the  mechanics  and 
manufacturers  of  the  city  of  New  York."  It  is  so  much  to  my  purpose  that  I  cannot  forl»ear  read- 
ing a  portion  of  it. 

Having  referred  to  the  independence  which  had  been  acquired,  and  the  fears  they  had  be:  n  led 
to  entertain  "  that  the  country,  having  gained  the  form  of  liberty,  had  left  in  the  hands  of  their 
enemies  the  instruments  of  oppression,  and  the  spirit  to  exercise  it,"  they  say  : 

"Your  petitioners  soon  perceived,  with  the  deepest  regret,  that  their  prospects  of  improving  wealth  were  blasted  by 
a  system  of  commercial  usurpation.  They  saw  the  trade  of  these  States  laboring  under  foreign  impositions,  and  loaded 
with  fellers  forged  in  every  quarter,  to  discourage  enterprise  and  def-at  industry.  In  this  situation,  they  have,  been 
prevented  from  applying  to  those  abundant  resources  with  which  nature  has  blessed  this  country.  Agriculture  has 
lost  its  capital  stimulus,  and  manufacture,  the  sister  of  commerce,  has  participated  in  all  its  distresses. 

"Your  petitioners  conceive  that  their  countrymen,  have  been  deluded  by  an  appearance  of  plenty;  by  the  profu- 
sion of  foreign  articles  which  has  deluged  the  country ;  and  thus  have  mistaken  excessive  tmportationfor  ajlourith- 
ing  trade. 

"  Wearied  by  their  fruitless  exertions,  your  petitioners  have  long  looked  forward  with  anxiety  for  the  establishment 
of  a  Government  which  would  have  power  to  check  the  growing  evil,  and  extend  a  protcctine  hand  to  the  interest? 
of  commerce  and  the  arts.  Such  a  Government  is  note  established.  On  the  promulgation  of  the  Constitution  just 
now  commencing  its  operations,  your  petitioners  discovered  in  its  principles  the  remedy  which  they  had  so  long 
and  so  earnestly' desir ed.  To  your  honorable  body  the  mechanics  and  manufacturers  of  New  York  look  up  with 
confidence,  convinced  that,  as  the  united  voice  of  America  has  furnished  you  with  the  means,  so  your  knowledse  of 
our  common  wants  has  "riven  you  the  spirit,  to  unbind  nur  fetters,  and  rescue  our  country  from  disgrace  and  ruin." 

I  have  before  me.  another  petition  from  "the  tradesmen  and  manufacturers  of  the  town  of  Bos- 
ton," presented  on  the  5th  of  June,  of  the  same  year,  in  which  the  petitioners,  having  refetred  to 
"  the  great  decrease  of  American  manufactures  and  almost  total  stagnation  of  American  ship  build- 
ing," proceed,  among  other  things,  to  say  : 

"Your  petitioners  need  not  inform  Congress  that,  on  the  revival  of  our  mechanical  arts  and  manufactures  depend 
the  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the  Northern  States ;  nor  can  we  forbear  mentioning  to  your  honors  that  the  citizens  of 
these  States  conccive'the  object  of  their  independence  but  half  obtained  till  ttv-se  national  purposes  are  established 
on  a  purmanent  and  extensive  basis,  by  the  legislative  acts  of  the  Federal  Government." 

These  pet'tionn  were  referred  to  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the  state  of  the  Union,  in 
which  the  subject  underwent  a  long  and  able  discussion.  The  result  was  the  passage  of  the  first 
revenue  bill,  signed  by  General  Washington  on  the  4th  of  July,  1789,  [appropriate  day!]  the 
preamble  of  which,  as  has  been  stated,  expressly  declared  that  it  was  passed  for  the  purpose,  among 
others,  of  the  "encouragement  and  protection  of  manufactures." 

I  hardly  need  call  the  attention  of  the  House  to  the  facts  and  reasonings  of  these  petitioners.  The 
national  industry  had  become  paralyzed.  The  State  Governments  had  interposed  without  effect. 
The  necessity  of  "  one  uniform  efficient  Government" — of  "  one  Sovereign  Legislature,"  possess- 
ing "the  sole  and  exclusive  power  of  laying  duties  upon  imports,"  had  been  thus  demonstrated. 
Such  a  Government  the  Constitution  had  provided.  "  Lv  ITS  pnixcirLF.s"  the  petitioners  "  dis- 
covered the  remedy  so  lortg  desired,"  and  without  which  "the  object  of  their  independence" 
would,  in  their  opinion,  have  been  "but  half  obtained." 

Such  was  the  reasoning  of  the  petitioners;  and  such  was  the  reasoning  of  the  whole  country. 
Tt  had  just  been  shaken  with  discussions  of  the  Constitution  ;  and  here  was  the  common  sense  con- 
struction of  it  by  the  people.  I  commend  it  to  those  who  now  deny  that  any  power  exists  under 
the  Constitution  to  protect  the  industry  of  the  country.  Then,  nobody  so  much  as  expressed  a 
doubt  of  the  existence  of  the  power.  In  all  the  discussions  in  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  to 
whom  these  petitions  were  referred — and  I  have  looked  through  that  debate — the  constitutional 
power  was  not,  that  I  can  find,  once  called  in  question,  though  differences  of  opinion  existed  as  to 
the  expediency  of  exercising  it.  This  is  the  more  remarkable,  because  of  the  decided  grouad 
taken  on  tha  subject  in  these  petitions,  as  well  as  from  the  fact  that  "  the  encouragement  and 


protection  of  manufactures"  was  made,  in  the  preamble  to  the  revenue  law  whose  pas  -age  followed 
these  discussions,  one  of  the  express  grounds  of  its  passage.  The  strong  vote  of  forty-one  to  eight 
in  favor  of  that  bill,  Mr.  MADISOX,  "the  father  of  the  Constitution,"  in  the  affirmative,  shows 
that  the  leading  minds  of  that  day  entertained  no  doubt  whatever  on  the  question  of  constitutional 
power. 

There  is  an  argument  in  favor  of  the  constitutional  power  of  Congress  over  this  subject,  involved 
in  the  reasoning  of  these  petitioners,  which  seems  to  me  unanswerable.  It  may  be  thus  stated  : 
The  power  to  regulate  commerce  and  lay  duties  on  imports,  existed  in  the  States.  ,  That  power 
had  been  transferred  to  Congress — wholly  transferred.  None  of  it  remained.  With  the  transfer 
of  the  whole  power  of  the  States  to  regulate  commerce  and  lay  duties  on  imports,  there  was, 
therefore,  transferred  the  power  to  regulate  commerce  and  lay  duties/or  all  the  purposes  for 
which  these  acts  might  have  been  performed  by  the  State  Governments,  one  of  which,  undeniably, 
was  the  protection  of  manufactures.  This  conclusion  results  not  only  from  the  fact  that  the  power 
was  granted  without  any  restriction  as  to  he  purposes  for  which  it  might  be  exercised,  but  still 
more  undeniably  from  the  consideration  that,  if  the  great  essential  power  of  protection  through 
these  indispensable  means  was  not  thus  transferred  from  the  States  to  the  General  Government, 
it  was  annihilated. 

In  looking  over  the  debates  to  which  I  have  referred,  I  find  this  argument  urged  in  substance  by 
Mr.  MADISON,  in  one  of  his  speeches  in  favor  of  protection  : 

"  There  is  (said  Mr.  M.) another  consideration.  The  Stales  that  are  most  advanced  in  population  and  ripe  for  man- 
ufacture! ousiit  to  have  their  particular  interests  attended  to  in  some  degree.  While  these  States  retained  the  power 
of  making  regulations  of  trade,  they  had  the  power  (o  protect  and  cherish  such  institutions.  By  adopting  the  present 
Constitution,  'they  have  thrown  the  exercise  of  this  power  into  other  hands.  They  must  have  done  this  with  an  ex- 
pectation that  those  interests  would  not  be  neglected  here." 

It  was  upon  the  basis  of  this  argument  (hat  Gen.  JACKSON  urged  the  constitutionality  of  a  pro- 
tective tariff  in  his  annual  message  of  1831,  to  which,  in  tracing  the  history  of  the  protective  poli- 
cy, I  shall. hereafter  more  particularly  refer.  The  argument  has  never  been  answered,  and  never 
can  be.  The  people  by  whom,  anil  for  whom,  this  Government  was  instituted,  will  never  be  sat- 
isfied with  a  construction  of  the  Constitution  which  annihilates  the  great  and  indispensable  power 
of  protecting  their  industry  against  the  crushing  influence  of  foreign  legislation,  and  lays  the  coun- 
try helpless  at  the  feet  of  foreign  Power*. 

The  policy  of  protection — extended  not  only  to  manufactures,  but  to  our  navigation  and  fish- 
eries, us  I  might  show  if  I  had  time — having  been,  as  we  have  thus  seen,  established  in  the  earliest 
legulation  of  this  Government,  I  propose  to  show  how  steadily  and  uniformly  it  has  continued  to 
he  the  policy  of  the  country.  This  I  shall  do  principally  by  a  reference  to  the  messages  of  the 
successive  Presidents,  as  furnishing,  from  time  to  time,  a  summary  exposition  not  only  of  their 
own,  but  of  the  sentiment  of  the  country  on  this  subject. 

After  having  seen  that  the  act  of  the  4th  of  July,  1789,  was  approved  by  PRESIDENT 
WASHINGTON,  it  will  not  surprise  us  to  find  him  recognising  the  protecting  policy  in  his  first 
annual  address  to  Congress,  of  the  8th  of  January,  1790. 

"  The  safety  and  interest  of  the  people,"  said  ho,  in  that  address, "  require  that  they  should  promote  such  manufac- 
tures as  tend  to  render  them  independent  of  others  for  essential,  particularly  for  military  supplies." 

Washington's  practical  mind  looked  to  the  policy  of  advancing  agriculture,  commerce,  and  man- 
ufactures, as  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  our  independence.  Congress  expressed  its  concur- 
rence with  this  sentiment  by  ordering,  on  the  15th  of  January,  1790, 

"  Thai  it  \>c  referred  t;/  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  to  propose  and  report  to  this  House  a  proper  plan  or  plans,  con- 
formably to  the  recommendation  of  the  President  in  his  speech  to  both  Houses  of  Congress,  for  the  encouragement  and 
promotion  of  such  manufactories  as  will  tend  to  render  the  United  States  independent  of  other  nations  for  essential, 
particularly  for  military  supplies." 

This  reference  drew  from  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasuiy  the  able  and  unanswerable  vindication 
of  the  protectina  policy  imbodied  in  his  celebrated  report,  communicated  to  Congress  en  the  5th 
of  December,  1791.  The  following,  from  its  introductory  paragraph,  presents  a  summary  of  the 
grounds  on  which  he  rested  that  vindication : 

"  The  embarrassments  which  have  obstructed  the  progress  of  our  external  trade  have  led  to  serious  reflections  on 
the  necessity  of  enlarging  the  sphere  of  our  domestic  commerce.  The  restrictive  regulations  which,  in  foreign  mar- 
kets, abridge  the  vent  for  the  increasing  surplus  of  our  agricultural  produce,  serve  to  beget  an  earnest  desire  that  a 
more  extensive  demand  for  that  surplus  maybe  created  at  home ;  and  the  complete  success  which  has  rewarded 
manufacturing  enterprise  iu  some  valuable  branches, conspiring  with  the  promising  symptons  which  attend  some  less 
mature  essays  in  otlvrs,  justify  a  hope  that  the  obstacles  to  the  growth  of  this  species  of  industry  are  less  formidable 
than  they  were  apprehended  to  be,  and  that  it  may  not  be  difficult  to  find,  in  its  further  extension,  a  full  indemnifica- 
tion for  any  external  disadvantges  which  are  or  may  be  experienced,  as  well  as  an  accession  of  resources  favorable  to 
national  independence  and  safety." 

The  policy  of  protecting  manufactures  having  been  thus  established,  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, in  the  year  1795,  instituted  the  Committee  of  Commerce  and  Manufactures,  which  was  con- 
tinued as  a  standing  committee  of  the  House  until  the  year  1819,  when  the  duties  connected  with 
the  subject  of  manufactures,  having,  in  the  progress  of  the  protecting  policy,  become  greatly  en- 
larged, were  severed  from  those  appertaining  to  commerce,  and  committed  to  a  Committee  of  Man- 
ufactures, which  has  ever  since  continued  to  be  one  of  the  standing  committees  of  the  House. 

But  to  proceed  with  the  Executive  addresses.  Passing  over  the  incidental  recognition  of  the 
protecting  policy  in  the  intermediate  addresses  qf  President  WASHINGTON,  we  come  to  the  decided 


and  earnest  recommendation  of  a  continuance  of  the  policy  in  his  last  address  of  the  7ih  of  Decem- 
ber, 1796,  in  which  he  says: 

"  Congress  havs  repeatedly,  and  not  without  sue  cess,  directed  their  attention  to  thp  encouragement  of  manufacturts- 
The  object  is  of  too  much  consequence  not  to  ensure  a  continuance  of  their  efforts  in  every  way  which  shall  appear 
eligible." 

Thus  did  this  great  man,  in  his  last  communication  to  Congress,  refer  with  evident  gratification 
to  the  encouragement  which  Congress  had  repeatedly  and  successfully  given  to  manufactures,  and 
urge  its  continued  patronage  and  support 

We  all  revere  the  name  of  WASHINGTON,  not  merely  for  his  greatness  in  the  field,  but  for  hi 
profound,  practical  wisdom  as  a  statesman.  His  opinions  need  no  commendation  of  mine.  It 
should  be  enough  to  announce  them,  to  ensure  for  them  the  most  respectful  consideration.  I  may 
well  ask  Virginians,  who  are  so  justly  proud  of  his  great  same,  to  review  their  opinions  upon  the 
constitutionality  and  expediency  of  a  tariff  for  protection,  when  they  find  them  conflicting  with  the 
deliberately  formed  and  repeatedly  expressed  opinions  of  their  beloved  WASHINGTON. 

My  next  reference  is  to  PRESIDENT  JEFFERSON.  Being  still  in  the  region  of  Virginia 
authority,  I  hope  to  receive  the  attention  of  gentlemen  from  that  State.  If  I  may  not  venture  to 
urge  them  to  listen  to  any  thing  /  can  say  on  this  subject,  I  may,  I  trust,  without  presumption, 
crave  their  attention  when  JEFFF.BSOX  speaks.  In  his  second  annual  message,  of  the  15th  of  De- 
cember, 1802,  he  says: 

"  To  cultivate  peace  and  maintain  commerce  and  navigation  in  all  their  lawful  enterprises ;  to  foster  our  fisheries 
as  nurseries  of  navigation,  and  for  the  nurture  of  man,  and  protect  the  manufactures  adapted  to  our  circumstances, 
to  preserve  the  faith  nf  the  nation  by  an  exact  discharge  of  its  debts  and  contracts,  expend  the  public  money  with 
the  same  care  and  economy  we  would  practice  with  our  own,  and  impose  on  our  citizens  no  unnecessary  burdens  :  to 
keep  in  all  things  within  the  pal?  of  our  constitutional  powers,  and  cherish  the  federal  Union  as  the  only  rock  of 
safety :— these,  fellow-citizens,  are  the  landmarks  by  which  we  are  to  guide  ourselves  in  all  our  proceedings.  By 
contmuine  to  make  these  the  rule  of  our  action,  we  shall  endear  to  our  countrymen  the  true  principles  of  their 
Constitution,  and  promote  an  union  of  sentiment  and  of  action  equally  auspicuous  to  their  happiness  and  s;i 

Let  me  ask  the  attention  of  the  House  a  moment  to  this  important  passage.  Here  are  certain 
great  leading  objects  to  which  the  President  calls  the  attention  of  Congress,  as  to  "landmarks'* 
which  were  to  guide  them  and  the  Executive  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties.  And  what  weie 
these  landmarks'?  To  cultivate  peace;  to  maintain  commerce  and  navigation  ;  to  foster  the  fish- 
eries; to  protect  manufactures  ,•  to  preserve  the  national  faith  ;  to  practise  economy  ;  to  rrspect 
the  Constitution ;  to  cherish  the  federal  Union. 

Thus,  to  "protect  manufactures"  was  deemed  by  Mr.  JEFFERSON  worthy  to  be  embraced  in  the 
comprehensive  summary  of  the  "rules  of  action,"  in  observing  which  they  were  to  endear  to  their 
countrymen  "the  true  principles  of  the  Constitution."  And  yet,  now  we  have  men,  who  make 
loud  professions  of  Jeffersonian  democracy,  as  loudly  asserting  that  it  is  a  gross  and  dangerous 
constitutional  heresy  to  maintain  the  right  of  Congress  to  strengthen  the  independence  of  the 
country  by  fostering  its  manufactures  ! 

But  I  proceed  wilh  JEFFKKSON'S  authority;  the  next  promulgation  of  which  I  find  in  his  annual 
message  of  the  2d  of  December,  1806. 

The  revenue  arising  from  imposts  had,  it  seems,  enabled  the  Government  so  far  to  extinguish 
the  public  debt  as  to  lead  the  President  to  anticipate  taut  there  would  "ere  long  be  an  accumula- 
tion of  moneys  in  the  Treasury  beyond  the  instalments  of  the  public  debt  which  the  Government 
would  be  permitted  by  contract  to  pay."  In  discussing  the  question  of  the  disposition  of  the  anti- 
cipated surplus,  the  President  says: 

"  To  what  other  objects  shall  these  gurplusaes  be  appropriated,  and  the  whole  surplus  of  impost  after  the  entire  dis- 
charge of  the  public  debt  ?  Shall  we  suppress  the  impost,  and  give  that  advantage  to  foreign  over  domestic  man- 
ufactures ?" 

He  proceeds  to  say  that  on  a  few  articles  he  thinks  the  impost  may  be  suppressed,  but  that, 
with  regard  to  the  great  mass  of  them,  the  "patriotism''  of  the  people  would  "prefer  its  continu- 
ance and  application  to  the  great  purposes  of  public  education,  roads,  rivers,  canals,  and  such 
other  objects  of  public  improvement  as  it  may  be  thought  proper  to  add  to  the  constitutional  enu- 
meration of  federal  powers." 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that,  rather  than  suppress  the  impost,  and  give  that  advantage  to  foreign 
over  domestic  manufactures,  Mr.  JF.FFEHSON  would,  with  a  few  exceptions,  maintain  the  impost, 
and  ask  the  States  to  authorize,  by  an  amendment  of  the  Constitution,  the  appropriation  of  the 
surpluses  thus  obtained  to  purposes  of  education  and  internal  improvement. 

I  have  not  done  with  Mr.  JEFFERSON'S  authority  in  favor  of  the  protecting  policy.  In  his  last 
annual  message  sent  to  Congress,  on  the  8th  of  November,  1808,  he  says: 

"The  suspension  of  foreign  commerce  produced  by  the  injustice  of  the  belligerent  Powers,  and  the  consequent 
losses  and  sacrifices  of  our  titizens,  are  subjects  of  just  concern.  The  situation  into  which  we  have  thus  been  forced 
has  impelled  us  to  apply  a  portion  of  our  industry  and  capital  to  internal  manufactures  and  improvements.  The  ex- 
tent of  this  conversion  is  daily  increasing,  and  little  doubt  remains  that  the  establishments  formed  and  firming  will, 
under  the  auspices  of  cheaper  materials  and  subsistence,  the  freedom  of  labor  from  taxation  with  us,  and  of  protecting 
duties  and  prohibitions,  become  permanent." 

Mr.  JEFFERSON,  it  thus  seems,  looked  tw  the  permanency  of  the  manufacturing  establishments 
of  the  country  ;  and  to  this  result  he  was  willing  to  contribute,  not  only  by  protecting  duties,  hut, 
if  necessary,  even  by  prohibitions. 

This  pert  of  the  meuag*  was  referred  to  .the  Committee  of  Commerce  and   Manufactures — Mr. 


NEWTON,  of  VIRGINIA,  chairman — from  whom  I  rind  a  report,  made  on  the  21st  of  June,  1809, 
fully  sustaining  the  principle  of  protection  laid  down  by  the  President,  and  containing,  among 
other  things,  the  following  just  and  comprehensive  view  of  the  ground  of  the  protective  policy. 
It  ought  to  be  placed  in  letters  of  ma-sive  gold  over  every  entrance  to  the  halls  of  our  national 
legislation,  and  daily  pondered  over  by  those  who  enter  them : 

"  A  NATION  ERECTS  A  SOLID  BASIS  FOR  THK  SUPPORT  AND  MAINTENANCE  OP  ITS  INDEPENDENCE  AND  PROSPERITY 
WHOSE  POLICY  IS  TO  DRAW  FROM  ITS  NATIVE  SOURCES  ALL  ARTICLES  OF  THE  FIRST  NECESSITY.'' 

Let,  me  now  turn  for  a  moment  from  Southern  Presidential  authority  to  Southern  authority  in 
another  branch  of  this  Government.  I  find  it  in  the  action  of  the  House  of  Representatives  on 
the  7th  of  June,  1809.  On  that  day  it  adopted  the  following  resolution  : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  be  directed  to  prepare  and  report  to  this  House,  at  their  next  sea 
sion,  a  plan  for  the  application  of  such  means  as  are  within  the  power  of  Congress,  for  the  purposes  of  protecting  and 
fostering  the  manufactures  of  the  United  States,  together  with  a  statement  of  the  several  manufacturing  establish- 
ments which  have  been  commenced,  the  progress  which  has  been  made  in  them,  and  the  success  with  which  they 
have  been  attended  ;  ami  such  other  information  as,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Secretary,  may  be  material  in  exhibiting  a 
general  view  of  the  manufactures  of  the  United  States." 

Here,  sir,  was  contemplated  the  preparation  of  "apian''  for  the  application  of  the  means 
within  the  power  of  Congress  to  protect  and  foster  the  manufactures  of  the  United  States.  And 

how  do  you  think  stood  the  Southern  votes  upon  thia  resolution  1  In  the  four  Southern  Atlantic 
States  the  votes  were  as  follows  : 

Virginia                                                                                      -  Yeas  12          Nay  a  9 

North  Carolina  8                    3 

SOUTH  CAHOLIXA  6                    1 

Georgia  1            ,         3 

Total  27  1« 

Such  was  the  vote  of  the  South,  from  whence,  we  now  have  the  most  furious  denunciation*  of 
the  protecting  policy,  as  unconstitutional  and  oppressive.  Lei  South  Carolina  look  at  her  vote 
on  that  occasion,  and  compare  it  with  her  subsequent  nullification  to  put  down  a  protective  tariff 
as  a  flagrant  violation  of  the  Constitution.  But  I  must  not  detain  the  House  by  comments. 

In  compliance  with  the  resolution  referred  to,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  GALLATIN, 
transmitted  to  Congress,  on  the  17th  of  April,  1810,  a  report,  in  which  he  enumerated  the  various 
manufactures  of  the  United  States,  gave  an  account,  of  their  progress,  as  far  as  he  had  been  able 
to  ascertain  it,  and  recommended  protection  by  "increased  duties  on  importation."  He  estimated 
the  annual  product  of  American  manufactories  to  exceed  $120,000,000,  and  that  the  raw  mate- 
rials used,  and  the  provisions  and  other  articles,  the  produce  of  the  United  States,  consumed  by 
the  manufacturers,  created  a  market  at  home  for  our  agricultural  productions  not  much  inferior  to 
that  which  arose  from  the  whole  foreign  demand.  Even  then,  it  seems,  in  the  infancy  of  our 
manufactures,  the  agricultural  interests  of  the  country,  which  gentlemen  here  are  in  the  habit  of 
representing  as  injuriously  affected  by  the  protecting  policy,  in  which  they  can  see  nothing  but 
the  building  up  of  "monopolies,"  and  the  oppressive  taxation  of  the  people  for  their  benefit — 
even  then  agriculture  found  in  the  consumption  of  the  manufacturers  a  market  for  her  productions 
equal  to  the  whole  foreign  demand  for  them. 

Alluding  to  the  defectiveness,  from  want  of  lime,  of  the  information  he  had  obtained,  Mr. 
GALLATIJT  recommended  that  more  full  information  be  sought  through  the  agents  then  about  to  be 
employed  in  taking  the  census:  and  accordingly,  on  the  1st  of  May,  1810,  Congress  passed  a 
law,  directing  the  marshals  and  their  assistants  "  to  take  an  account  of  the  several  manufacturing 
establishments  and  manufactures'.'  within  the  United  States — thus  aiding,  l>y  direct  legislation, 
in  maturing  the  "plan"  for  the  "protection  and  fostering"  of  manufactures,  contemplated  in 
the  resolution  to  which  I  have  referred. 

In  carrying  out  my  purpose  of  sustaining  the  constitutionality  and  expediency  of  the  protective 
policy  by  a  reference  to  the  Executive  messages  to  Congress,  I  come  now  to  PRESIDENT 
MADISON,  the  "father  of  the  Constitution."  Following  the  report  of  Mr.  GALLATIX,  and 
the  enactment  of  the  law  providing  for  the  taking  an  account  of  the  manufactures,  we  have  Mr. 
MADISON'S  message  of  the  5th  of  December,  1810,  in  which  he  says: 

"  I  feel  particular  satisfaction  in  rsmarkina  that  an  interior  view  of  our  country  presents  us  wi  h  grateful  proofs  of 
Its  substantial  and  increasing  prosperity.  To  a  thriving  agriculture,  and  the  improvements  relating  to  it,  is  added  a 
highly  interesting  extension  of  useful  manufactures,  the  combined  product  of  professional  occupations  and  of 
household  industry.  Such,  indeed,  is  the  experience  of  economy,  as  well  as  of  policy,  in  these  substitutes  for  sup- 
plies heretofore  obtained  by  foreign  commerce,  that,  in  a  national  view,  the  change  is  justly  regarded  as,  of  itself, 
more  than  a  recompense  for  those  privations  and  losses,  resulting  from  foreign  injustice,  which  furnished  the  general 
impulse  required  for  ill  accomplishment.  How  far  it  may  be  expedient  to  guard  the  infancy  of  this  improvement 
in  the  distribution  of  labor,  by  regulations  of  the  co  i  mercial  tariff,  is  a  subject  which  cannot  fail  to  suggest  itself  to 
your  patriotic  reflections." 

How  striking  the  contrast  between  the  enlarged  view  which  Mr.  MADISON  took  of  this  subject, 
and  that  in  which  modern  wisdom  can  alone  see  it!  He  regarded  the  encouragement  of  manu- 
factures as  a  "national"  object.  In  a  " national  view,"  the  change  was,  in  his  opinion,  more 
than  a  recompense  for  the  privations  and  losses  connected  with  the  injustice  which  had  forced 


8 

manufactures  into  existence.  He  paw  with  the  eye  of  a  practised  statesman  the  necessary  con- 
nexion between  the  interest  of  manufactures  and  every  other  interest — justly  reasoning  that  a 
branch  of  industry  which  consumed  the  products  of  agriculture  on  one  hand,  and  employed  the 
agencies  of  commerce  en  the  other,  possessed  a  diffusive  energy  which  would  make  its  influence 
to  be  felt  for  good  throughout  the  entire  country.  Well  might  he  commend  to  the  "patriotic" 
reflections  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  an  interest  thus  national,  and  worth  such  sacri- 
fices. But  modern  patriotism,  contracting  the  scope  of  its  vision,  sees  nothing  but  hateful  mo- 
nopolies, and  sectional  interests,  where  MADISON",  in  the  soundness  of  his  wisdom  and  the  fulness 
of  his  patriotism,  saw  the  wealth,  tho  strength,  the  independence,  and  the  glory  of  the  whole 
country. 

The  subject  was  followed  up  by  Mr.  MADISOJT  in  his  next  message,  sentto  Congress  on  the  5th 
of  November,  1811,  in  which  he  said  : 

"  Although  other  subjects  will  press  more  immediately  on  your  dr-liberations,  a  portion  of  them  cannot  but  be  well 
bestowed  on  the  just  and  sound  policy  of  securing  10  our  manufactures  the  success  they  have  attained,  and  are 
still  attain! us,  under  the  impulse  of  causes  not  permanent,  and  to  our  navigation,  the  fair  extent  of  which  it  is,  at 
present,  abridged  by  the  unequal  regulations  of  foreign  Governments.  Besides  the  reasonableness  of  saving  our 
manufactures  from  sacrifices  which  a  change  of  circumstances  might  bring  upon  them,  the  national  interest  re- 
quires that,  with  respect  to  such  articles  at  least  as  belong  to  our  defence  and  primary  wants,  we  should  not  be  left 
in  a  stats  of  unnecessary  dependence  on  external  supplies." 

Here  was  no  abatement  of  Mr.  MATIISOX'S  zeal  in  favor  of  the  protecting  policy.  It  was,  in 
his  opinion,  a  "just  and  sound  policy."  He  would  take  care  to  secure  the  success  already  at- 
tained by  manufactures,  and  save  them  from  the  sacrifices  to  which  a  change  of  circumstances 
might  exposo  them. 

The  next  expression  of  Mr.  MADISON'S  opinions  on  this  subject  I  find  in  his  special  message 
to  Congress  of  the  20th  of  February,  1815,  accompanying  the  treaty  of  peace  concluded  at 
Ghent  on  the  24th  of  December  preceding.  Having  congratulated  Congress  and  the  country  on 
the  auspicious  event,  and  recommended  the  adoption  of  various  measures  called  for  by  the  change 
in  the  condition  of  the  country,  he  closed  by  again  urging  upon  the  attention  of  Congress  the 
great  interest  which  seems  to  have  been  ever  present  to  his  mind. 

"But  (said  ho)  there  is  no  subject  that  can  enter  with  greater  force  and  merit  into  the  deliberations  of  Con- 
gress than  a  consideration  of  the  means  to  preserve  and  promote  the  manufactures  which  have  sprung  into  exist- 
ence,  and  attained  an  unparalleled  maturity  throughout,  the  United  States  during  the  period  of  the  European  wars 
This  source  of  national  independence  and  wealth  I  anxiously  recommend,  therefore,  to  the  prompt  aha  constant 
guardianship  of  Congress." 

Here  again  is  exhibited  Mr.  MADISON'S  zeal  in  behalf  of  this  great  interest.  No  subject  could, 
in  his  opinion,  enter  with  greater  force  and  merit  into  the  deliberations  of  Congress.  The  wealth 
and  the  independence,  not  merely  of  the  manufacturers  and  the  capitalists,  but  of  the  nation,  were 
involved  in  it.  It  was,  therefore,  in  his  opinion,  worthy  of  more  than  a  passing  suggestion.  He 
anxiously  recommended  it  to  the  prompt  and  constant  UUARDIASSHIP  of  Congress. 

Guardianship  !  That  was  the  relation  which,  during  the  first  forty-four  years  of  this  Govern- 
ment, existed  between  it  and  the  manufacturing  interests  of  the  country.  Mr.  MADISON  well 
knew,  and  every  statesman  ought  to  know,  that  without  such  guardian  care  the  manufacture* 
of  no  country  can  succeed  against  the  capital  and  skill,  the  bounties,  premiums,  and  prohibitions, 
of  old  and  well-established  manufacturing  communities — to  say  nothing  of  the  pauper  labor  with 
which  the  manufacturer!  of  this  country  have  to  come  in  competition.  If  the  strong-minded 
practical  men  who  framed  our  Constitution,  and  who  long  gave  direction  to  our  public  affairs, 
had  exhausted  their  energies  upon  hair-splitting  constructions  of  the  Constitution,  instead  of  seizing 
and  carrying  out  its  great  principles,  we  should  still  have  been  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of 
water  to  the  manufacturing  capital  and  skill  of  foreign  countries. 

But  I  must  cease  comment,  and  let  Mr.  MADISOV  again  speak.  He  thus  continues  to  press 
the  subject  in  his  next  annual  message,  of  the  5th  of  December,  1815: 

"In  adjusting  the  duties  on  imports  to  the  object  of  revenue,  the  influence  of  the  tariff  on  manufactures  will  ne- 
cessarily present  itself  for  consideration.  However  wise  the  theory  may  be  which  leaves  to  the  sagacity  and  interest 
of  individuals  the  application  of  their  industry  and  resources,  there  are  in  this,  as  in  all  other  cases,  exceptions  to 
the  gsneral  rule  Besides  the  condition  which  the  theory  itself  implies,  of  a  reciprocal  adoption  by  other  nations, 
experience  teaches  that  so  many  circurnsta  ices  must  concur  in  introducing  and  maturing  manufacturing  establish- 
ments, especially  of  the  -mure  complicaied  kinds,  that  a  country  may  remain  long  without  them,  although  suffi- 
ciently advanced, and  in  snine  respects  evori  peculiarly  fitted  for  carrying  them  on  with  success.  *  *  * 
In  selecting  the  branches  more  especially  entitled  to  the  public  patronage,  a  preference  is  obviously  claimed  by  such 
as  will  relieve  the  United  Slates  from  a  dependence  on  foreign  supplies,  ever  subject  to  casual  failures,  fi>r  articles 
necessary  for  the  public  defence,  or  connected  with  the  primary  wants  of  individuals.  It  will  be  an  additional 
recommendation  of  particular  manufactures  when  the  materials  for  them  are  extensively  drawn  from  our  agricul- 
ture, and  consequently  impart  and  ensure  to  that  great  fund  of  national  prosperity  and  independence  an  encourage- 
ment which  cannot  fail  to  lie  rewarded." 

Here,  again,  is  exhibited  the  practical  good  sense  of  Mr.  MADISO.V.  He  discards  the  theory 
which  so  leaves  to  sagacity  and  interest  the  application  of  industry  as  to  disregard  the  considera- 
tion that  it  must  be  adopted  by  other  nations  to  render  its  observance  consistent  with  our  inde- 
pendence; while  he -sees — what  I  would  that  some  modern  wise  men  could  see — the  direct 
connexion  of  manufactures  with  agriculture,  in  all  its  departments — using  its  raw  materials,  and 
consuming  its  other  productions,  and  thus,  throughout  the  entire  country,  giving  "encourage- 
ment to  that  great  fund  of  national  prosperity  and  independence." 

Having  now  arrived  at  a"n  important  period  in  the  history  of  the  protective  policy,  we  will  pause 


9 

a  little,  and  turn  from  the  Executive  messages  to  other  evidences  of  the  state  of  public  sentiment 
on  the  subject  of  protection. 

The 'House  of  Representatives  having,  in  February,  1815,  passed  a  resolution  requiring  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  report  to  Congress  a  general  tariff  of  duties,  the  Secretary,  (Mr. 
DALLAS,)  on  the  13th  of  February,  1816,  transmitted  to  the  House  a  lengthy  and  able  report,  in 
which  he  very  fully  maintained  the  policy  of  protection  to  domestic  industry,  and  recommended, 
with  that  view,  an  increase  of  the  duties  on  certain  articles,  particularly  on  cottons  nnd  woollens. 
The  following  is  a  specimen  of  the  reasoning  of  that  report — reasoning,  the  correctness  of  which 
has  been  fully  te-ted  in  the  practical  results  of  protecting  legislation  : 

"Althoush  (said  Blr.  DALLAS)  some  indulgence  will  always  be  required  for  any  attempt  to  realize  the  national 
independence  in  the  department  of  manufactures,  the  sacrifice  cannot  be  either  great  or  lasting.  The  inconven- 
iences of  the  day  will  be  amply  compensated  by  future  advantages.  The  agriculturist,  whose  produce  and  whose 
flocks  depend  f-r  their  value  upon  the  fluctuations  of  a  foreign  market,  will  have  no  occasion  eventually  to  rreret 
the  opportunity  of  a  ready  sale  for  his  wool  or  his  cotton  in  his  own  neighborhood  ;  and  it  will  soon  be  understood  that 
the  success  of  the  American  manufacture,  which  tends  to  diminish  the  profit  (often  the  excessive  profit)  of  the  im- 
porter, does  not  necessarily  add  to  the  price  of  the  article  in  the  hands  of  the  coiummer." 

I  regret  that  my  limits  do  not  permit  me  to  quote  more  hugely  from  this  able  report.  But  I  must 
pass  on. 

On  the  same  day  on  which  this  report  was  sent  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  Committee 
of  Commerce  and  Manufactures  of  that  body,  by  their  chairman,  (Mr.  NEWTON*,  of  Virginia,) 
made  an  able  report  upon  the  reference  to  that  committee  of  memorials  of  manufacturers  of  cotton 
wool,  in  which  they  recommended  a  large  increase  of  duty  on  manufactures  of  cotton,  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  domestic  manufacture,  and  sustained,  by  an  elaborate  and  able  argument,  the  gen- 
eral policy  of  protection.  Time  will  scarcely  permit  me  to  read  from  this  report;  as  it  comes 
from  Virginia,  however,  I  cannot  refrain  from  calling  the  attention  of  the  South  to  one  or  two 
paragraphs : 

"  The  Slates  that  are  most  disposed  to  manufactures  as  regular  occupations,  (say  the  committee,)  will  draw  from  tho 
airicultural  States  nil  thr-  raw  materials  which  they  want,  and  not  an  inconsiderable  portion,  also,  of  the  necessaries 
of  life:  while  the  Utter  will,  in  add  i(  ion  to  the  benefits  which  they  at  present  enjoy,  always  command,  in  peace  or  in 
war,  at  moderate  prices,  every  species  of  manufacture  that  their  wants  may  require.  Should  they  be  inclined  to  man- 
ufacture for  themselves,  they  can  do  so  with  success,  because  they  have  all  the  means  in  their  power  to  erect  and  to 
extend, at  pleasure,  manufacturing  establishments,  Our  wants  being  supplied  by  our  own  ingenuity  and  industry, 
exportation  of  specie  to  pay  for  foreign  manufacture*  will  cease." 

Referring  to  the  genera!  advantages  of  the  protecting  system  in  developing  the  resources  of  the 
whole  country,  the  committee  say: 

"Every  Stale  will  participate  in  those  advantages ;  the  resources  of  each  will  be  explored,  opened,  and  enlarged. 
Different  sections  of  the.  Union  will,  according  to  their  position,  the  climate,  the  population,  the  habits  of  the  people, 
and  the  nature  of  the  soil,  strike  into  that  line  "of  industry  which  is  best  adapted  to  their  interest  and  the  goo  i  of  the 
whole;  an  active  and  free  intercourse,  promoted  and  facilitated  by  roads  and  canals,  will  ensue;  prejudices  which 
are  generated  by  distance,  and  the  want  of  inducements  to  approach  each  other  and  reciprocate  benefits,  will  be 
removed;  information  will  be  extended;  the  Union  will  acquire  "trenglh  and  solidity;  and  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  that  of  each  State,  will  be  regarded  as  fountains  from  which  flow  numerous  streams  of  public  and 
private  prosperity." 

Here  is  an  enlarged  arid  u  noble  view  of  the  su'.iject,  worthy  of  the  best  days  of  Virginia.  Would 
that  the  present  race  of  her  statesmen  could  expand  their  minds  to  a  comprehension  of  its  deep 
philosophy  and  its  wide  bearings  upon  the  solid  prosperity  of  the  country. 

Following  these  repoits  was  the  enactment  of  the  tariff  law  of  1816.  Among  numerous  other 
protecting  duties,  it  imposed  a  duty  of  twenty-five  per  cent,  on  woollen  cloths,  and  the  same  per 
cent,  on  cottons,  with  a  proviso  that  cottons  costing  les*  than  twenty-five  cents  the  square  yard 
should  be  taken  to  have  cost  that  sum,  and  be  charged  with  duty  accordingly.  The  effect  of  this 
proviso  was  the  exclu-ion  from  our  market  of  coarse  cottons,  from  which  has  resulted  the  present 
prosperous  state  of  that  manufacture,  and  the  low  prices  of  its  productions — a  result  which  will  al- 
ways follow  such  protection  as  shall  establish  the  home  manufacture  upon  a  solid  basis. 

On  looking  into  tin:  Journal  of  the  House,  \  find  that,  on  a  motion  to  strike  out  the  "mini- 
mum" proviso  to  which  I  have  just  referred,  six  out  of  the  eight  members  from  South  Carolina 
voted  in  the  negative,  among  whom  was  Mr.  LOWXDKS,  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means,  who  reported  the  bill,  and  Mr.  CALHOUN  ;  the  latter  of  whom,  I  believe,  upon  every  mo- 
tion that  wa*  made  to  reduce  the  duties  on  the  protected  articles,  voted  for  the  highest  dutv. 

On  the  occasion  of  the  motion  just  referred  to,  Mr.  Calhoun  made  a  speech,  from  which  I  ask 
permission  to  rend  a  few  passages,  exhibiting  his  thorough  attachment  to  the  principle  of  protec- 
tion, and  contrasting  strangely  with  his  present  hostility  to  the  whole  protecting  policy,  and  espe- 
cially with  his  and  South  Carolina's  nullification  to  put  it  down. 

"  Neither  agriculture,  manufactures,  nor  commerce,  (said  Mr.  CALHOUN,)  taken  separately,  are  the  cause  of  wealth  : 
it  flows  from  them  combined,  and  cannot  exist  without  each.  The  wealth  of  any  single  nation  or  individual,  it  is 
tnie,  may  not  irmnediay  ly  be  derived  from  the  three,  but  it  always  presupposes  the  existence  of  the  three  sources, 
though  derived  immediately  from  one  or  two  of  them  only.  Taken  in  its  most  enlarged  sense,  without  commerce, 
industry  would  have  no  stimulus  ;  without  manufactures,  it  would  be  without  the  means  of  production  ;  and  without 
agriculture  neither  of  the  others  could  exist ;  when  separated  entirely,  and  permanently,  they  must  perish.  War,  in 
this  country,  produces,  to  a  great  extent,  that  separation ;  and  hence  the  great  embarrassment  that  follows  in  its  train. 
The  failure  of  the  wealth  and  resources  of  the  nation  necessarily  involves  the  ruin  of  its  finances  and  its  currency. 
It  is  admitted,  by  the  most  strenuous  advocates  on  the  other  side,  that  no  country  ought  to  be  dependent  on  another  tor 
its  means  of  defence  ;  that,  at  least,  our  musket  and  bayonet,  our  cannon  and  ball,  ought  to  be  domestic  manufacture. 
But  what  is  more  necessary  to  the  defence  of  a  country  than  its  currency  and  finance  7  Circumscribed  as  our  coun- 
try is,  can  these  stand  the  shock  of  war  ?  Behold  the  effect  of  the  late  war  on  them  !  When  our  manufactures  are 


10 

ernvn  to  a  certain  perfection,  as  they  soon  will,  under  the  fo*tt  'ing  care  of  Government,  V.-P  will  n«  longer  experi- 
ence ihosn  evils.  The  farmer  will 'find  a  ready  market  for  his  surplus  profiuce,  and.  what  is  of  almost  pquul  conse- 
([uenw,  a  certain  and  cheap  supply  of  nil  his  wa  .is.  His  prosperity  will  difl  '  r-vety  class  nf  the  commu- 

nity." 

Having  descril>ed  the  effect  of  war  upon  our  industry  and  currency,  its  obstruction  to  the  ex- 
portation of  our  bulky  articles,  while  a  demand  would  continue  for  foreign  articles,  to  be  supplied 
through  the  policy  of  the  enemy  or  unlawful  traffic — resulting  in  a  drain  of  our  specie  fo  pay  the 
balance  perpetually  accumulating  against  us,  [this  process  is  now  going  on  in  a  time  of  peace!] 
he  proceeded  !o  say  : 

"  To  this  distressing  state  of  things  there  are  two  remedies,  anil  only  two:  one  in  our  powpr  immediately,  the  other 
requiring  much  lime  and  exertion ;  but  both  constituting,  in  his  opinion,  the  essential  policy  ol"  this  <:<uriuy.  He 
meant  tfie  navy  and  dom  stic  majinfaclures.  By  the  former  we  could  open  the  way  to  our  markets  ;  l>y  the  latter 
we  bring  themfiom  beyond  lite  ocean,  und  naturalize  them  in  our  oirn  soil." 

Having  spoken  of  the  effect  of  the  war  in  giving  existence  to  manufactures,  and  in  bringing 
them  to  some  degree  of  maturity,  he  said  : 

"  But  it  will  no  doubt  bo  said,  if  they  are  s-i  far  established,  and  if  the  situation  of  the  country  is  favoriHe  to  their 
growth,  where  is  .the  necessity  of  aff>rding  them  protection  ?  //  i«  to  put  them  beyond  the  reach  of  contingency." 

Mr.  Calhoun  gave  the  following  conclusive  reply  to  an  objection  against  manufacture*  which 
has  been  urged  in  this  debate  :  , 

••  It  has  been  further  asserted  (said  he)  that  manufactures  are  the  fruitful  rav.se  of  pauperism  ;  an.!  England  has 
been  referred  to  as  furnishing  conclusive  evidence  of  the  'act.  For  his  part,  he  could  contrive  no  such  tendency  in 
them,  but  the  exact  contrary,  as  they  furnish  new  stimuli  to  industry  and  means  of  subsistence  tn  the  laboring 
classes  of  the  community'  We  ought  not  (said  Mr.  C.)  to  look  to  the  cotton  and  woollen  establishments  of  Great 
Britain  lor  the  prodigious  number  of  "poor  with  whi  'h  her  population  is  disgraced.  Causes  much  nn  re  efficient  exist 
Her  poor  laws  and  statutes  regulating  the  price  of  labor,  with  her  heavy  taxe.«,  are  tht  real  cai.  - 

Alluding  to  the  objection,  that  the  relation  between  capital  and  manufacturing  labor  produced  a 
state  of  dependence  on  the  part  of  tke  employed,  he  replied,  that 

"He  did  not  think  it  a  decisive  objection  to  the  system,  especially  when  it  had  incidental  political  advantages 
which,  in  his  opinion,  were  more  than  a  counterpoise  to  it.  It  produced  an.  interest  strictly  American,  as  much  so  as 
agriculture.  In  this  il  had  the  decided  advantage  of  commerce  or  navigation.  Again,  (said  Mr.  C.,)  it  is  calculated 
to  bind  together  more  closely  our  widely  spread  republic.  It  will  greatly  increase  our  mutual  dependence  and  inter- 
course, anil  will,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  excite  an  increased  attention  to  internal  improvement — a  subject  every 
way  intimately  connected  with  the  ultimate  attainment  of  national  strength  and  the  perfection  of  our  political  insti- 
tutions. He  regarded  the  fact  that  it  would  make  the  parts  adhere  more  closely,  that  it  would  form  a  new  and  most 
powerful  cement,  as  far  outweighing  any  political  objections  that  might  be  urged  against  the  system.1' 

Here  we  have  the  "American  System,"  in  its  full  height,  and  depth,  and  length,  and  breadth, 
maintained  by  JOHN  C.  CAI-HOCX,  of  South  Carolina.  The  inquiry,  wky  Mr.  Calhoun  and 
South  Carolina  now  desire  to  abandon,  ulterly,  a  system  of  protection  which  they  once  labored  to 
establish,  and  at  a  sacrifice  of  interests  justly  claiming  at  their  hands  parental  care  and  protection, 
is  worthy  of  grave  consideration. 

I  turn  from  this  digression,  and  proceed  to  Mr.  MADISON'S  last  official  expression  of  his  appro- 
bation of  the  protecting  policy.  I  find  it  in  his  message  of  the  3d  of  Dei-ember,  ISlfi ;  in  which 
he  says : 

"Amidst  the  advantases  which  have  succeeded  the  peace  of  Europe  and  lhat  of  the  United  Stales  wish  Grea 
Britain,  in  a  general  invlgnralion  of  industry  among  us,  and  in  the  extension  of  our  commerce,  the  value  of  which  i« 
more  and  more  disclosing  itself  to  commercial  nations,  it  is  to  be.  regretted  that  a  depression  is  experienced  by  par- 
ticular branches  of  our  manufactures  and  by  a  portion  of  our  navigation.  As  the  first  proceeds,  in  an  essential  de- 
gree, fr.'in  an  excess  of  imported  merchandise,  which  carms  a  check  in  its  own  tendency,  the  cause,  at  its  present 
extent,  cannot  be  of  very  long  duration.  The  evil  will  not,  however,  be  viewed  by  Congress  without  a  recollection 
that  manufacturing  establishments,  if  suffered  to  sink  loo  low,  or  languish  too  long,  may  not  rent'  after  the  causes 
shall  have  ceased,  and  lhat,  in  the  vicissiludes  of  human  affairs,  situations  may  recur  in  which  a  dependence  on  for- 
eign sources  for  indispensable  supplies  may  be  among  the  most  serious  embarrassments." 

A  suggestion  is  here  made  by  Mr.  MADISON,  of  great  practical  importance  at  the  present  mo- 
ment. It  is,  that  "  manufacturing  establishments,  if  suffered  to  sink  too  low,  or  languish  too 
long,  may  not  revive  after  the  causes  shall  have  ceased."  He  deemed  the  manufacturing  and  de- 
pendent interests,  of  an  importance  too  vital  to  the  country  to  be  lightly  subjected  to  such  a  hazard. 
Let  the  present  Congress,  then,  inquire  whether  the  last  and  great  reduction  of  duties  under  the 
"  compromise  law,"  on  the  1st  of  July  next,  will  not  place  some,  at  least,  of  the  branches  of  our 
manufactures  in  the  predicament  described  by  Mr.  MADISON.  Being  dead,  he  yet  speaks.;  and  it 
may  be  hoped  that  he  will  not  speak  to  us  in  vain. 

Mr.  MADISON'S  allusion  to  the  effect  of  the  excessive  importation  of  merchandise  upon  the 
termination  of  the  war,  brings  to  mind  an  important  fact  in  connexion  with  that  importation. 

The  imports  of  1815  amounted  to  §113,000,000.*  The  exports  were  but  §52,000,000.  The 
disastrous  effects  of  this  excessive  importation  and  great  balance  against  us  are  matter  of  history 
familiar  to  all.  There  was  one  cause  connected  with  these  results  which  has  an  important  bearing 
on  the  great  question.  I  find  it  disclosed  in  a  speech  of  Lord  BUOUOHAU  in  the  British  Parlia- 
ment. Having  described  the  effect  of  the  peace  of  1814,  which  opened  continental  Europe  to 
British  manufactures,  and  produced  excessive  exportations  in  that  direction,  he  said  : 

*  The  returns  from  which  this  is  taken  were  for  ihe  focal  year  ending  September  30th,  1815.  As  there  was  but  a 
small  amount  of  importations  during  the  first  quarter  01  that  year,  that  is,  during  the  months  of  October.  November, 
and  December,  1614— the  war  having  not  then  closed— the  great  mass  of  the  £113,000,000  is. of  course,  thrown  upon 
the  three  first  quarters  of  the  year  1315,  inakinr  the  .vh  At  importation  ol  that  year  ab.'Ut  £150,000.000. 


11 

"  The  prace  of  Ann-rica  has  produced  s  mewhal  of  a  similar  effect,  thought  I  am  very  far  from  pUdng  the  vast  ex- 
ports whic.h  it  occasioned  upon  the  same  livling  with  those-  ID  the  European  market  the  year  before,  both  because  ul- 
timately the  Americans  will  pay,  which  th->  exhausted  state,  of  the  continent  r*  riders  very  unlikely,  and  because  it 
teas  well  worth  tthile  to  incur  a  loss  upon  tht  first  exporlations,  in  order,  by  the  glut,  TO  STIFLE  IN  THE  CRADLK 
T«08E  RISING  MANUFACTURES  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  which  the  war  hail  forcf-d  into  existence  contrary  to  the  natural 
course  of  things.1' 

Here  is  disclosed  (he  policy  of  the  British  manufacturer?,  and  of  the  British  Government.  The 
"  natural  course,  nf  things"  had  been  disturbed  by  the  war,  insomuch  that,  to  a  great  and  unusual 
extent,  American  wants  had  come  to  be  supplied  by  American  skill  anj  industry  !  This  state  of 
things  must  not  be  suffered  to  continue;  and  therefore  it  was  deemed  "  well  worth  while  to  incur 
a  loss  upon  the  first  exportation?,  in  order,  by  the  glut,  to  stifle  in  the  cradle  the  rising  manufac- 
tures of  the  United  States" — that  is,  to  "restore  things  to  (heir  natural  state,"  l>y  bringing  back 
the  United  States  to  their  dependence  upon  a  foreign  Power! 

The  policy  of  1815  is  the  policy  now  ;  and  what  has  been,  may  again  be,  its  result.  It  is  a 
policy  against  which  it  is  madness  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  not  to  guard  with  unceas- 
ing vigilance.  Well  may  British  capitalists  ati'ord  at  any  tiire  to  sacrifice  a  few  millions  to  crush 
our  manufactures,  that  they  mny  have  a  monopoly  of  our  market.  Gladly  would  British  capitalists 
and  British  statesmen  bring  us  back  to  the  condition  of  dependence  described  in  the  early  petitions 
of  our  manufacturers,  to  which  I  have  referred  ;  and  if  mistaken  cotton-growing  counsels  are  to 
prevail,  and  guide  the  legislation  of  this  nation,  we  s.ha!l  be  thus  brought  back  and  held  in  perpet- 
ual and  ruinous  dependence. 

But  I  must  proceed  with  my  authorities  in  favor. of  the  protecting  policy.  PRESIDENT  MON- 
ROE is  next  in  order.  There  may  be  impatience  at,  these  full  references,  but  I  have  set  out  with 
a  determination  that  the  enemies  of  protection  shall  have  the  whole,  and  I  must  proceed  at  the 
hazard  of  wearying  the  patience  of  the  House. 

[Cries  of  "  go  on,"  "go  on" — "give  us  the  whole."'] 

The  first  expression  of  President  MONROE'S  opinions  cm  this  subject  come  to  us  in  a  form  unu- 
sually imposing.  They  are  found  in  his  inaugural  address  of  the  5th  of  March,  1817,  the  sen- 
timents of  which  may  well  be  supposed  to  have  been  the  result  of  no  ordinary  deliberation.  Hav- 
ing referred  to  various  national  interests  which  demanded  the  attention  of  the  Government,  he  said  : 

"  Our  manufactures  will  likewise  require  the  si/slf;iiafic  anA  fostering  care  of  the  Government.  Possessing  as  we 
do  all  the  raw  materials,  the  fruit  nf  our  own  soil  and  industry,  we  ought  not  to  depend,  in  the  degree  we'have  done, 
on  supplies  from  other  countries.  While  we  are  thus  dependent,  the  sudden  event  of  war,  unsought  and  unexpect- 
ed, cannot  fail  to  plunge  us  into  the  most  serious  difficulties.  It  is  important,  too,  that  the  capital  which  nourishes 
our  manufactures  should  tie  domestic,  afl  its  influence  in  that  case,  instead  of  exhausting,  as  it  may  do,  in  foreign 
hands,  would  be  felt  advantageously  on  agriculture  and  every  other  branch  of  industry.  Kqually  important  is  it  t.i 
provide  at  home  a  market  for  our  raw  materials,  as,  tiy  extending  the  competition,  it  will  enhance  the  price  and  pro- 
tect the  cultivator  against  the  casualties  incident  to  foreign  markets.'1 

Let  me  be  indulged  in  a  few  words  of  comment  on  this  remarkable  passage.  It  is,  perhaps,  the 
best  summary  ot  the  arguments  in  favor  of  the  protecting  policy  which  is  any  where  to  be  found 
within  the  same  compass. 

The  mind  of  President  Monroe  was  not  limited  to  the  narrow  circle  of  the  direct  and  immediate 
benefits  of  protection  to  the  manufacturer.  It  took  a  wider  range,  and  comprehended  within  its 
vision  the  broad  horizon  which  encircled  the  whole  country  with  its  varied  and  complicated  and 
mutually  dependent  interests,  in  peace  and  in  war.  He  saw  the  effect  of  the  protecting  policy  in 
providing  a  home  marktt,  not  only  for  the  raw  materials  employed  in  our  manufactures — such,  for 
example,  as  those  of  cottons,  woollens,  iron,  glass,  leather,  paper,  &c. — but  for  the  numerous  ar- 
ticles of  subsistence,  the  produce  of  our  agriculture,  consumed  by  those  engaged  directly  or  indi- 
rectly iu  manufactures  ;  thus  developing  the  resources  of  our  soil  and  industry,  increasing  the 
competition  for  their  productions,  enhancing;  their  value,  and  protecting  the  cultivators  of  our  soil 
"against  the  casualties  incident  to  foreign  markets."  His  wise  forecast  contemplated  especially 
the  "serious  difficulties"  resulting  from  a  dependence  in  these  respects  upon  other  countries  in 
"  the  sudden  event  of  a  war." 

Entertaining  no  sickly  jealousy  of  American  capitalists,  he  was  wise  enough  to  see  how  import- 
ant it  was  that  the  capital  which  nourished  the  manufactures  consumed  by  us  should  be  American 
rathe*  than  foreign— that  it  should  be  employed  in  giving  existence  to  manufactures  here,  where 
"  its  influence  would  be  felt  advantageously  on  agriculture  and  every  other  branch  of  industry," 
instead  of  producing  them  ifl  foreign  countries,  and  thus  becoming  tiie  instrument  of  exhausting 
our  resources  and  paralyzing  our  industry. 

The  care  which  President  MOX'HOK  would  extend  to  the  manufactures  of  the  country  was  of  a 
nature  which  views,  so  enlarged  and  just,  of  the  protecting  policy  might  be  expected  to  produce. 
It  was  not  an  irregular  and  transient,  but  a  "  systematic  and  fostering  care" — a  care  which  the 
magnitude  and  diversity  and  enduring  importance  of  the  manufacturing  and  dependent  interests 
might  well  claim,  and  may  still  cliim,  nt  the  hands  of  a  wise  and  a  just  Government. 

The  policy  thus  indicated  in  the  inaugural  address  of  President  MONHOK  was  carried  out  during 
his  whole  administration.  Six  of  his  eight  annual  messages  contained  explicit  recommendations 
of  the  protecting  policy  to  the  favorable  consideration  pf  Congress.  I  will  now  proceed  to  bring 
them,  in  their  order,  to  the  notice  of  the  House.  In  his  first  annual  message,  of  the  3d  of  Decem- 
ber, 1817,  he  says: 


12 

"  Our  manufactures  will  require  the  continued  attention  of  Congress.  The  capital  employed  in  them  is  consider- 
able, and  the  kn  wlcdge  required  in  the  machinery  and  fabric  of  all  the  most  useful  manufactures  is  of  great  value. 
Their  preservation,  which  depends  on  due  encouragement,  is  connected  witli  the  high  interests  of  the  nation. 

A  word,  sir,  upon  this  paragraph.  Here  is  a  new  element  of  national  wealth,  or,  rather,  one 
which  seems  never  to  enter  the  minds  of  the  opposers  of  protection.  "  The  knowledge,  required  in 
the  machinery  and  fabric  of  manufactures  is  (said  the  President)  of  great  value."  If  "  knowledge 
is  power,"  it  miiy  be  truly  said  to  be  wealth  also.  Who  ca'nco'i.pute  the  aggregate  value  to  this  na- 
tion of  the  skill,  the  "knowledge,"  which  has  been  brought  into  existence  by  the  "  systematic  and 
fostering  care"  extended  to  our  manufjcturers?  To  say  nothing  of  the  machinery  moved  by  water 
and  steam,  look  at  the  machinery  of  mind  in  perpetual  motion,  as  a  producing  power,  in  thu  great 
department  of  manufacturing  industry.  What  a  mine  of  wealth  to  this  nation  ! 

But  I  proceed  to  the  second  annual  message,  of  the  17th  of  November,  1818: 

"  The  strk  t  execution  of  the  revenue  laws,  resulting  principally  from  the  salutary  provisions  of  the  act  of  the  20th 
of  April  last,  amending  the  several  collection  laws,  has,  it  is  presumed,  secured  to  domestic  manufactures  all  the 
relief  that  can  be  derived  from  the  duties  which  have  benn  imposed  upon  foreign  merchandise  for  their  protection. 
Under  the  influence  of  this  relief,  several  branches  of  this  important  national  interest  have  assumed  greater  activity ; 
and  although  it  is  hoped  that  others  will  gradually  revive,  and  ultimately  triumph  over  every  obstacle,  yet  the  expe- 
diency of  granting  further  protection  is  submitted  to  your  consideration." 

I  pass  to  the  third  annual  message,  of  the  7th  December,  1819.  Having  adverted  to  the  de- 
pressed state  of  the  manufacturing  establishments,  resulting  from  the  pecuniary  embarrassments  of 
the  country,  the  President  proceeds  to  state  : 

"  An  additional  cause  of  the  depression  of  these  establishments  may  probably  be  found  in  the  pecuniary  embarrass- 
ments which  h.tve  ivcemly  affected  those  countries  with  which  our  commerce  has  been  principally  prosecuted. 
Their  manufactures,  lor  want  of  a  ready  and  profitable  market  at  home,  have  been  shipped  by  the  manufacturers  to 
the  United  Stairs,  and,  in  many  instances,  sold  at  a  price  below  tlieir  current  value  at  ihe  place  of  manufacture.  Al- 
though this  practice  may.  from  its  nature,  be  considered  temporary  or  contingent,  it  is  not  on  that  account  less  inju- 
rious~in  its  elT'-cts.  Uniformity  in  the  demand  and  price  of  an  article  is  highly  desirable  to  the  domestic  manufac- 
turer. It  is  deemed  of  great  importance  to  give  encouragement  to  our  domestic  manufactures.  In  what  manner  the 
evils  adverted  to  may  bo  remedied,  and  how  far  it  may  lie  practicable  in  other  respects  to  afford  to  them  further  en- 
courageuient,  paying  due  regard  to  all  the  other  great  interests  of  the  nation,  is  submitted  to  the  wisdom  of  Congress." 

Here  is  an  illustration  of  the  "stifling"  effect,  upon  "  the  rising  manufactures  of  the  United 
States,"  of  a  glut  of  our  market,  described  by  Lord  BrtouGHAitf  as  resulting  from  the  excessive 
importations  of  1815 — subjecting  our  manufactures  to  the  danger  of  prostration,  not  only  upon  the 
voluntary  determination  ot  British  capitalists  to  make  occasional  sacrifices  for  that  purpose,  but 
upon  the  forced  sacrifices  produced  by  derangements  in  the  monetary  affairs  of  that  country. 

We  have  now  arrived  at  the  period  when  the  Committee  on  Manufactures  was  instituted.  It 
was  done  on  the  8th  of  December,  1819 — the  day  following  the  transmission  of  the  message  last 
referred  to — on  the  motion  of  Mr.  LITTLE,  of  Maryland.  The  interest  of  manufactures  had  come 
to  be  regarded,  by  nil  branches  of  the  Government,  as  one  of  the  cardinal  interests  of  the  nation. 
The  policy  of  protection  had  become  fully  settled  ;  and  the  Committee  on  Manufactures  was  its 
natural  and  legitimate  offspring.  To  that  committee  has  ever  since  been  confided  the  subject  of 
manufactures,  with  a  view  to  their  protection;  and  that,  with  no  more  question  of  the  propriety 
and  necessity  of  such  commitment,  than  there  has  been  of  the  propriety  and  necessity  of  confiding 
to  the  Committee  on  Commerce  the  commercial  interests  of  the  country — both,  until  then, 
confided  to  one  committee — both  the  handmaids  of  agriculture — and  all  blended  in  one  harmonious 
system  of  dependent  ami  mutually  sustaining  interests. 

Mr  MONROE'S  fourth  annual  message  is  silent  on  the  subject.  The  fifth,  of  the  3d  of  Decem- 
ber, 1821,  is  full  and  explicit: 

"  It  may  fairly  be  presumed  (said  the  President)  that,  under  the  protection  given  to  domestic  manufactures  hy  the 
existing  laws,  we  shall  become,  at  no  distant  period,  a  manufacturing  country,  on  an  extensive  scale.  Possessine,  as 
we  d  ,  the  raw  materials  in  such  vast  amount,  with  a  capacity  to  augment  them  loan  indefinite  extent ;  raising  within 
the  country  aliment  of  every  kind,  to  an  amount  far  exceeding  the  demand  for  home  consumption,  even  in  the  most 
unfavorable  yeans,  and  to  be  obtained  always  at  a  very  moderate  price ;  skilled,  also,  us  our  people  are,  in  the  me- 
chanic arts,  and  in  every  improvement  calculated  to  lessen  the  demand  for  and  the  price  of  labor,  it  is  manifest  that 
their  success,  in  every  branch  of  domestic  industry,  may  and  will  be  carried,  under  the  encouragement  given  by  the 
present  duties,  to  an  extent  to  meet  any  demand  which,  unc'.er  a  (air  competition,  may  be  made  upon  It. 

"  It  cannot  be  doubted,  that  the  more  complete  our  internal  resources,  and  the  less  dependent  we  are  on  foreign 
Powers,  for  every  national  as  well  as  domestic  purpose,  the  greater  and  more  stable  will  be  tho  public  felicity.  By 
the  increase  of  domestic  manufactures  will  the  demand  for  the  rude  materials  at  home  be  increased  ;  and  thus  will 
the  dependence  of  the  several  parts  of  the  Union  on  each  other,  and  the  strength  of  the  Union  itself,  be  proportion- 
ably  augmented." 

Here,  again,  are  exhibited  the  broad  and  statesmanlike  views  of  President  Monroe,  comprehend- 
ing the  vast  capacities  of  our  country,  iu  varied  productions,  its  diversified  soil  and  climate,  arid 
the  mutual  dependence  of  the  North  and  South,  the  East  and  West — all  inviting  to  the  establish- 
ment of  the  "  American  system,"  and  forming  the  basis,  rightfully  improved,  of  an  enduring  and 
prosperous  Union. 

Mr.  MOVROK'S  sixth  annual  message,  of  the  3d  of  December,  1822,  thus  refers  to  this  subject : 

"  Satisfied  I  am,  whatever  may  be  the  abstract  doctrine  in  favor  of  unrestricted  commerce,  (provided  all  nations 
would  concur  in  it,  and  it  was  not  likely  to  be  interrupted  by  war,  which  has  never  occurred,  and  cannot  be  expected,) 
that  there  are  other  strong  reasons,  applicable  to  our  situation  and  relations  with  other  countries,  which  impose  on  us 
the  obligation  to  cherish  our  manufactures." 

Here  was  exhibited  the  common  sense  of  Mr.  MOXHOE.  He  dealt  with  realities.  The 
theory  of  free  trade — which  England  forever  preaches,  but  never  practices — he  treated  as  a  mere 
abstraction.  The  want  of  general  concurrence  in  the  free-trade  theory,  and  the  liability  to  war, 


13 

were  with  him  sober  matters  of  fact,  to  be  taken  into  account  in  forming  a  judgment  on  this  great 
question. 

In  his  seventh  annual  message,  of  the  2d  of  December,  1823,  President  MONROE  adverted  to  the 
subject,  for  the  seventh  and  last  time,  as  follows; 

"  Having  communicated  my  views  to  Congress,  at  the  commpncemenfof  the  last  session,  respecting  the  encourage 
mem  which  ought  to  be  given  to  our  manufactures,  and  the  principles  on  which  it  should  be  founded,  I  have  only  to 
add,  that  these  views  remain  unchanged,  and  that  the  present  state  of  the  countries  with  which  we  have  the  most  im- 
mediate political  relations  and  greatest  commercial  intercourse  tends  to  confirm  them.  Under  this  impression,  I 
recommend  a  review  of  the  tariff,  for  the  purpose  of  affording  such  additional  protection  to  those  articles  which  we 
are  prepared  to  manufacture,  ur  which  are  more  immediately  connected  with  the  defence  and  independence  of  the 
country." 

This  message  was  followed  by  the  tariff  of  1824,  which  can  ied  out  the  views  so  repeatedly  urged 
upon  the  attention  of  Congress  by  President  MONROE,  during  his  administration. 

It  is  a  common  remark,  that  the  protective  policy  has  been  sustained  by  WASHINGTON,  JEFFER- 
SON, MADISON,  and  MONROE.  I  have  deemed  it  proper,  at  the  hazard  of  wearying  the  patience 
of  the  House,  to  depart  from  the  beaten  track  of  general  reference  to  their  authority,  and  s6  to  intro- 
duce them  into  this  debate  as  that  they  may  speak  for  themselves.  You  have  the  positions  taken 
by  these  great  men,  and  their  reasons  for  them,  expressed  under  all  the  varied  lights  of  their  own 
diversified  observation  and  reflection,  during  the  first  thirty-five  years  of  the  administration  of  this 
Government.  They  were  all  men  of  the  Revolution — two  of  them  the  most  distinguished  mem- 
bers of  the  Convention  which  formed  the  Constitution,  and  all  familiar  with  the  discussions  which 
preceded  its  adoption  by  the  people.  You  have  not  only  the  authority  of  their  names,  but  the 
power  of  their  arguments,  in  favor  of  the  protecting  policy.  Though  dead,  they  yet  speak  ;  and 
admonish  their  countrymen,  as  they  value  their  Independence  and  their  Union,  to  cherish  this 
policy. 

And  shall  not  their  voice  be  heard  ?  Will  Virginia  disregard  ill  Has  she  any  veneration  for 
the  names  and  the  principles  of  her  WASHINGTON,  her  JEFFERSON,  her  MADISON,  and  her  MON- 
ROE '!  And  shall  their  recorded  opinions  on  this  great  question,  given  under  the  high  sanction  of 
their  Executive  responsibility,  pass  unheeded  1  I  do  not  a?k  Virginia  to  hear  me  ;  but  I  may  and 
do  ask  her  to  listen  to  her  own  honored  and  vener.ited  sons — the  depth  of  whose  wisdom,  and  the 
fervor  of  whose  patriotism,  she  surely  may  not  question. 

In  concluding  my  reference  to  Virginia  authority,  I  need  not  fay  that  the  Executive  messages 
to  which  I  have  referred  were  just  exponents  of  the  policy  carried  out  in  the  legislation  of  Con- 
gress during  the  first  thirty-five  years  of  this  Government.  During  the  whole  of  this  period,  we 
have  a  succession  of  Executive  messages,  Treasury  reports,  reports  of  committees,  resolutions  of 
the  House  of  Representatives,  and  acts  of  Congress — all  fully  sustaining  the  protecting  policy,  nnd 
clearly  indicating  a  conviction  that  it  ought  to  be,  and  an  expectation  that  it  would  be,  the  aetthd 
policy  of  the  country. 

I  now  turn  from  Southern  authority  to  the  North.  The  venerable  gentleman  from  Massachu- 
setts, [Mr.  ADAMb,]  now  at  the  post  assigned  him  by  the  people  on  this  floor,  next  occupied 
the  chair  of  state.  His  sentiments  on  the  subject  of  the  protecting  policy  during  his  Presidency 
are  well  known.  I  pass  over  occasional  references  to  it  in  his  messages,  and  come  to  the  last, 
transmitted  to  Congress  on  the  2d  of  December,  1828,  which  contains  an  argument  in  favor  of 
protection,  worthy  of  that  policy,  and  of  the  great  man  who  vindicated  it. 

"  The  great  interests  (said  Mr.  ADAMS)  of  our  agricultural,  commercial,  and  manufacturing  nation  are  s.>  linked  in 
union  together  that  no  permanent  cause  of  prosperity  to  any  one  of  them  can  operate  without  extending  its  influence 
to  the  others.  All  these  interests  are  alike  under  the  protecting  power  of  the  legislative  authority,  and  the  duties  cf 
the  representative  bodies  are  to  conciliate  them  in  harmony  tiigether.  So  far  as  the  object  of  taxation  is  to  raise  a 
revenue  for  discharging  the  debts  and  defraying  the  expenses  of  the  community,  it  should,  as  much  as  possible,  suit 
the  burden,  with  equal  hand,  upon  all,  in  proportion  with  their  ability  of  bearing  it  without  oppression.  But  the  le- 
gislation of  one  nation  is  sometimes  intentionally  made  to  boar  heavily  upon  the  interests  of  another.  That  le^islo- 
lion,  adapted,  as  it  is  meant  to  be,  to  the  special  interests  of  its  own  people,  will  often  press  most  unequally  "upon 
the  several  component  interests  of  its  neighbors. 

"  Thus  the  legislation  of  Great  Britain,  \yhen,  as  has  recently  been  avowed,  adapted  to  the  depression  of  a  rival 
nation,  will  naturally  abound  with  regulations  of  interdict  upon  the  productions  of  the  soil  or  industry  of  the  other 
which  come  in  competition  with  its  own,  and  xvill  present  encouragement,  perhaps  eveu  bounty,  lo  the  raw  material 
of  the  other  Slate  which  it  cannot  produce  itself,  and  which  is  essential  to  the  use  of  its  manufactures,  competitor  in 
the  markets  of  the  world  with  those  of  its  commercial  rival. 

"  Such  is  the  stale  of  the  commercial  legislation  of  Great  Britain,  as  it  bears  upon  our  interests.  It  excludes  with 
interdicting  duties  all  importations  (except  in  time  of  approaching  famine)  of  the  great  staple  productions  of  our  Mi-I 
die  and  Western  States.  It  proscribes,  with  equal  riser,  bulkier  lumber  and  live  stock  of  the  same  portion,  and  also 
of  the  Northern  and  Eastern  parts  of  our  Union.  It  refuses  even  the  rice  of  th<>  South,  unless  asgravated  with  a  charge 
of  duty  upon  the  Northern  carrier  who  brings  it  to  them.  But  the  cotton,  indispensable  for  their  looms,  they  will  re- 
ceive almost  duty  free,  to  weave  it  into  a  fabric  for  our  own  wear,  to  the  destruction  of  our  own  manufactures  which 
they  are  enabled  thus  to  undersell. 

"  Is  the  self-protecting  energy  of  this  nation  so  helpless,  that  there  exists  in  the  political  institutions  of  our  country 
no  power  to  counteract  the  bias  of  this  foreign  legislation;  lhat  the  growers  of  grain  must  submit  to  this  exclusion 
from  the  foreign  markets  of  their  produce ;  that  the  shippers  must  dismantle  Iheir  ships,  ihe  trade  of  the  North  slau- 
nate  at  the  wharves,  and  the  manufacturers  starve  at  their  looms,  while  the  whole  people  shall  pay  tribute  lo  foreign 
industry,  to  be  clad  in  a  foreign  garb ;  that  the  Congress  of  the  Union  are  impotent  to  restore  the  balance  in  favor°i>f 
native  industry,  destroyed  by  the  statutes  of  another  nation  t  More  just  and  more  generous  sentiments  will,  I  trust, 
prevail. 

"If  the  tariff  adopted  at  the  last  session  of  Congress  shall  be  found  by  experience  to  bear  oppressively  upon  the  in- 
terests of  any  one  section  of  the  Union,  it  oueht  to  be,  and  I  cannot  doubt  will  be,  so  modified  as  to  alleviate  its  bur- 
dens. To  the  voice  of  just  complaint,  from  any  portion  of  their  constituent,  the  representatives  of  the  States  and  the 
people  will  never  turn  away  their  ears.  But  so  long  as  the  duty  of  the  foreign  shall  operate  only  as  a  bounty  upon 
the  domestic  article— while  the  planter,  and  the  merchant,  and  the  shepherd,  and  the  hmbandman,  shall  be  found 


u 

thriving  in  their  occupations,  under  the  duties  imposed  lor  tlir  protection  of  domestic  manufactures— they  will  not 
rppiii"?  at  the  prosperity  shared  with  themselves  by  their  fellow-citizens  of  other  professions,  nor  denounce  as  viola- 
tions of  the  Constitution  llic  deliberate  acts  of  Congress  to  shield  from  the  wrongs  of  foreign  laws  the  native  industry 
of  the  Union." 

If  I  might  allow  myself  to  interrupt  the  reflections  suggested  !>y  this  eloquent  a:  d  unanswerable 
vindication  of  the  protective  policy,  .it  would  be  to  dwell,  for  a  moment,  upon  the  sentiment  with 
which  it  commences — the  indissoluble  union  of  the  interests  of  agriculture,  commerce,  and  man- 
facturex,  so  that  the  permanent  prosperity  of  one  necessarily  becomes  the  prosperity  of  all.  All  the 
reasonings  [  have  heard  on  this  floor,  in  opposition  to  the  protective  policy,  have  overlooked  this 
threat  truth  ;  insomuch  that  that  whole  policy  has  been  repeatedly  asserted  to  be  for  the  exclusive 
benefit  of  those  engaged  in  manufactures.  We  have  been  referred  to  the  791,000,  returned  by 
the  marshals-,  as  manufacturers  and  artisans,  and  tauntiui'ly  told  that  these  alone,  out  of  the  17,- 
000,000  of  our  population,  were  to  be  benefited  by  the  i  n-fecting  system,  at  tlic  expense  of  all  the 
rest.  I  have  been  amazed  at  the  pertinacity  with  which  ,thio  position  has  been  maintained,  in  the 
face  of  the  most  obvious  and  overwhelming  proofs  to  the  contrary.  Why,  sir,  the  sympathy  is 
not  more  strong  between  the  different  members  of  the  human  body  than  it  is  between  these  inte- 
rests. With  great  propriety  may  the  beautiful  language  of  inspiration  be  applied  to  them — "If 
one  member  suffers,  all  the  members  suffer  with  it;  and  if  one  member  be  honored,  all  rejoice." 

Look  at  the  producers,  in  one  form  or  another,  of  the  raw  material's  employed  in  the  various 
manufactures  in  the  United  States — such,  for  example,  as  the  manufactures  of  woollens,  cottons, 
iron,  glass,  ptper,  hats,  boots,  shoes,  &c.  I  have  no  means  of  computing  either  the  value  of 
these  raw  materials,  or  the  number  of  persons  employed  in  their  production.  When  the  statistics 
obtained  by  the  marshals,  in  connexion  with  the  late  census,  shall  be  published,  we  shall  have  in- 
formation of  great  value  bearing  on  this  subject,  to  which  I  may  take  occasion  hereafter  to  refer. 
A  moaieat's  reflection,  however,  will  enable  any  one  to  see  that  the  persona  employed  in  the  pro- 
duction, in  various  ways,  of  the  raw  materials  that  enter  into  the  manufactures  of  the  United 
States  far  outnumber  those  employed  in  the  production  of  the  manufactures  themselves — to  say 
nothing,  now,  of  the  vast  amount  of  capital  invesled  in  the  production  of  those  raw  materials,  and 
the  immense  c/eatiori.1  of  value  in  many  kinds  of  them;  which  valu  •,  but  for  our  manufactures, 
would  have  had  no  existence.  Strike  a  fatal  blow  at  the  manufactures,  and  see  how  soon  it  would 
be  felt  among  tho  producers  of  their  raw  materials.  Its  effect  upon  the  wool-growing  interest  would 
be  especially  disastrous.  I  shall  refer  to  this  interest  more  particularly  hereafter. 

But,  then,  there  is  the  still  greater  interest  involved  in  the  production  of  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence of  the  791,000  "  manufacturers  and  artisans*,"  who,  we  are  told,  are  alone  benefited  by  a  pro- 
tecting tariif.  Whence  come  the  wheat,  rye,  corn  potatoe's,  peas,  beans,  pork,  beef,  poultry, {butter, 
cheese,  &c.,  consumed  by  them  arid  by  the  families  dependent  on  a  large  portion  of  them  for  sup- 
port? Are  they  not  the  fruit  of  the  labor  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  agriculturists,  all  of  whom 
must,  of  necessity,  feel  tho  benefit  of  a  policy  that  thus  furnishes  a  market  for  these  means  of  humnn 
subsistence  !  Try  the  experiment  of  leaving  our  manufacturing  interests  without  protection — ex- 
pose them  to  the  prostration  which  must  follow  the  withdrawal  of  the  fostering  care  which  the  policy 
of  foreign  Governments  h;is  hitherto  made  it  the  wisdom  and  the  justice  of  our  Government  to  ex  • 
tend  to  them,  and  what  become.*  of  these  dependent  agricultural  interests?  Change  the  791,000 
manufacturers  and  artisans  with  their  dependents,  from  consumers,  to  producers,  of  the  means  of 
subsistence,  and  who  can  compute  the  reduction  in  the  value  of  agricultural  products,and  of  the 
lands  which  produce  them  ? 

And  then,  too,  there  are  the  vast  number  of  persons  engaged,  in  various  ways,  in  the  ex- 
changes that  are  perpetually  going  on  between  the  manufacturers  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  pro- 
ducers of  the  raw  materials  and  the  means  of  subsistence  on  the  other.  These,  too,  should  be 
added  to  the  791,000  who,  we  are  told,  are  alone  benefited  by  protection,  at  the  cxpensu  of  the  rest 
of  the  community. 

It  is  thus  th it,  in  the  language  of  President  ADAMS,  "  the  planter,  and  the  merchant,  and  tho 
shepherd,  and  the  husbandman,  are  found  thriving  iti  their  occupations,  under  the  duties  imposed 
for  the  protection  of  domestic  manufactures." 

But  I  must  forbear  comment,  and  hasten  on  ;  thougli  I  can  hardly  do  it  without  invoking  your 
attention,  as  I  pas-*,  to  tho  argument  which  Mr.  Au.ors  draws  from  the  "  helplessness  of  the  self- 
protecting  energy  of  this  Government,''  involved  in  the  denial  of  iu  right  to  "counteract  that 
bias  of  foreign  legislation"  which  lays  our  people  under  "  tribute  to  foreign  industry."  This 
great  arid  strong  point  he  presents  with  a  clearness  and  force  which  it  seems  to  me  must  put  to 
flight  all  doubts  as  to  the  constitutional  power  of  Congress  over  this  subject.  But  I  shall  soon 
present  the  same  argument  in  another  form,  by  PKESIEENT  JACKSON,  and  therefore  pass  on 
to  a  consideration  of  hU  messages,  as  they  bear  on  this  question.  In  his  lirst  annual  message,  of 
the  8th  of.  December,  1629,  he  thus  discourses  on  the  subject : 

'•To  regulate  its  conduct,  so  as  to  protaote,  equally,  the  prosperity  of  these  three  cardinal  interests,  [agriculture,  com" 
merce,  and  manufactures,]  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  of  Government;  and  it  may  be  regretted  that  the  compli- 
cated restrictions  which  now  embarrass  the-  intercourse  of  nations  could  not,  by  common  consent,  be  abolished,  and 
commerce  allowed  to  flow  in  those  channels  to  which  individual  enterprise,  always  its  surest  guide,  might  direct  it. 
But  we  must  ever  expect  selfish  legislation  in  other  nations,  and  are  therefore  compelled  to  adapt  our  own  to  their 
regulations,  iu  the  manner  best  calculated  to  avoid  serious  injury,  and  to  harmonize  the  conflicting  interests  of  pur 
agriculture,  our  commerce,  and  our  manufactures.  Under  these  impressions  I  invite  your  attention  to  the  existing 
tariff,  believing  that  some  of  iu  provisions  require  modification.  The  general  rule  to  be  applied  in  graduating  the 


15 

duties  upon  the  articles  of  foreign  growth  or  manufacture,  is  that  which  willJ  lace  our  own  in  fair  competition  with 
those  of  other  countries  ;  and  the  inducements  to  advance  even  a  step  beyond  this  point  are  controlling  in  regard  to 
those  articles  which  are  of  primary  necessity  in  time  of  war." 

I  pass  without  comment  from  this  to  the  annual  message  of  President  JACKSON,  of  the  7th  of 
December,  1830,  to  which  I  have  already  alluded,  as  containing  a  statement  of  the  argument  in 
support  of  a  protective  tariff,  drawn  from  the  transfer,  by  the  States,  of  their  whole  power  over  im- 
posts to  the  General  Government.  And  here  is  the  argument,  in  the  language  of  the  President  : 

"  The  power  la  imposo  duties  on  imports  originally  belonged  to  the  several  States.  The  risrht  to  adjust  these  du- 
ties, with  a  view  to  the  encouragement  of  domestic  branches  of  industry,  is  so  completely  incidental  to  that  power( 
thai  il  is  difficult  to  suppose  the  existence  of  the  one  without  the  other.  The  States  have  delegated  their  whole  an 
thority  over  imports  to  the  Genera]  Government,  wiUumt  limitation  or  restriction,  saving  the  very  inconsiderable  re- 
servation relatini;  to  their  inspection  laws.  This  authority  having  thus  entirely  passed" from  the  Stales,  the  right  to 
exercise  it  for  tiie  purposo  of  protection  does  not  exist  in  them  ;  and,  consequently,  if  it  bu  not  possessed  by  the 
General  Government;  it  must  be  extinct.  Our  political  system  would  thus  present  the  anomaly  of  a  people  stripped 
of  the  right  to  foster  ttieirown  industry,  and  to  counteract  the  most  selfish  and  destructive  policy  which  might  bo 
adopted  by  foreign  nations.  This,  surely,  cannot  be  the  case.  This  indispensable  power,  thns  surrendered  by  the 
ISuites,  must  be  within  the  scope  of  the  authority  on  the  subject  expressly  delegated  to  Congress.  In  this  conclusion 
i  am  confirmed  as  well  by  the  opinions  of  Presidents  Washington,  Jefferson,  IViadison,  and'.Monroe,  who  have,  each, 
tepeatedly  recommended  the  exercise  of  this  right,  under  the  Constitution,  as  by  the  uniform  practice  of  Concre??, 
lie  continued  acquiescence  of  the  States,  and  the  general  understanding  of  the  people." 

We  come  now  to  an  eventful  period  in  the  history  of  the  protecting  policy.  Though  it  had,  as 
we  have  seen,  become  the  settled  policy  of  the  country ;  though  its  constitutionality  had  been 
confirmed  by  an  unvarying  current  of  executive  authority,  "  by  the  uniform  practice  of  Congress, 
by  the  continued  acquiescence  of  the  States,  and  the  general  understanding  of  the  people,"  yet  it 
was  now  to  be  met  by  a  determined  spirit  of  resistance.  NULLIFICATION  reared  its  brazen  front, 
and  bid  defiance  lo  the  power  of  the  Government,  thus  constitutionally  exercised. 

A  Stale  convention  assembled  at  Columbia,  in  South  Carolina,  in  November,  1832,  and  passed 
an  ordinance  declaring  the  tariff  laws  to  be  null  and  void  within  the  limits  of  that  Stale,  nnd  mak- 
ing it  the  duty  of  the  Legislature  to  pass  such  Inws  as  should  he  necessary  to  carry  the  ordinance 
into  effect.  How  promptly  the  Legislature  obeyed  this  mandate,  I  need  not  say. 

The  convention,  having  thus  "  nullified''  the  revenue  laws,  put  forth  an  address  to  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  in  which  they  said  : 

"It  remains  for  us  t  >  submit  a  plan  of  taxation  in  which  we  would  bo  willing  to  acquiesce,  in  a  liberal  spirit,  of  con- 
cession,  provided  we  are  met.  in  due  time,  and  in  a  becoming  spirit,  (!)  by  the  States  interested  in  manufactures."  In 
the  opinion  of  the  convent!  in,  an  equitable  plan  would  be,  that  "  the  whole  list  of  protected  articles  should  be  im- 
ported free  <>f  all  duty,  and  thai  the  revenue  derived  from  import  duties  should  be  raised  exclusively  from  the  unpro 
teeted  articles  ;  or  that,  whenever  a  duty  is  inijio.seil  upon  protected  articles  imported,  an  excise  duty  ol  the  same  rate 
hall  be  imposed  upon  all  similar  articles  manufactured  in  the  United  States." 

Such  was  the  plan,  submitted  in  a  liberal  spirit  of  concession  !     The -convention  proceeded  to  say  . 

"  They  are  will  in;  io  make  a  large  offering  to  preserve  the  Union;  ami,  with  a  distinct  declaration  that  it  is  aeon- 
r.rssion  o'n  their  pun.  ili'--y  will  consent  that  the  game  rate  of  duties  may  be  imposed  upon  the  protected  articles  that 
^liail  be  imposed  upon  the  unprotected,  provided  that  no  more  revenue  be  raised  than  is  necessary  to  meet  the  de- 
mands of  the  Government  liir  constitutional  purp  >ses ;  and  provided,  also,  that  a  duty,  substantially  uniform,  be  im- 
j.'Obi.'d  upon  all  foreign  imports."  , 

Thus,  as  a  matter  of  "  cuitcesxioii" — as  a  "large  offering  to  preserve  the  Union"- — a  principle 
of  revenue  was  proposed  which  utterly  abolished  all  discrimination  for  purposes  of  protection,  and 
pie^criiied  as  the  only  alternative  to  civil  war,  what,  has,  in  this  debate,  been  denominated  a  '•hor- 
izontal tariri";"  that  is,  a  tariff  of  duties  "substantially  uniform  upon  all  foreign  imports." 

And  here  is  the  origin  of  the  "compromise  lav?'  of  the  2d  of  March,  1833.  That  law  was 
fco  far  a  compliance  with  the  demand  of  South  Carolina  as  to  fix  a  "horizontal  tariff"  of  twenty 
per  cent,,  to  take  effect  on  the  1st  day  of  July,  1842. 

And  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  upon  the  near  approach  of  that  period,  we  are  called  on  to  consider 
whether  we  shall  leave  the  compromise  law  to  its  "  horizontal"  operation,  or  whether  we  shall 
hlill  maintain  the  policy  which  has,  for  more  than  fifty  years,  protected,  by  discriminating  duties, 
our  domestic  industry. 

In  this  state  of  things,  I  am  happy  to  find,  in  the  message  of  the-  President  at  the  opening  of 
the  present  session,  a  continuance  of  Executive  authority  in  favor  of  the  great  principle  of  protec- 
tion for  which  we  contend.  I  allude  to  that  part  of  the  message  whose  proposed  reference  is  now 
the  subject  of  consideration. 

I  am  as  little  disposed  as  any  can  he  to  hold  on  to  the  skirts  of  Executive  authority  ;  and  I  have 
referred  to  the  messages  of  preceding  Presidents,  a.s  expressing  not  merely  their  own,  but  the  sen- 
timent* of  the  country,  during  their  administration*.  But,  as  President  TILER  has  spoken  on 
the  subject,  and  it  is  pioposed  to  refer  that  part  of  hi.s  message  to  a  committee,  I  may  be  excused 
for  considering  what  some  have  affected  to  regard  the  doubtful  question  as  to  what  he  has  said. 

"  In  imposing  duties,  (says  the  President,)  fur  the  purpose  of  revenue,  a  right  to  discriminate  as  to  the  articles  on 
which  the  duty  shall  be  laid,  as  well  as  the  amount,  necessarily  and  properly  exists.  Otherwise,  the  Government 
would  be  placed  in  the  condition  of  having  to  levy  the  same  duties  upon  all  articles— the  productive  as  well  as  the 
unproductive.  The  slightest  duty  upon  some  might  have  the  effect  of  causing  their  importation  lo  cease;  whereas 
others,  entering  extensively  into  the  consumption  of  the  country,  might  bear  the  heaviest,  without  any  sensible  dimi- 
a  it  ion  in  the  amount  imported. 

'  So,  also,  the  Government  may  be  justified  in  so  discriminating,  by  reference  to  other  considerations  of  domestic 
policy  connected  with  our  manufactures.  So  long  as  the  duties  shall  be  laid  wilh  distinct  reference  to  the  wants  of 
ihe.  Treasury,  no  well  founded  objection  can  be  raised  against  them." 

Here  is  discrimination  for  two  purposes.    First,  for  revenue.    For  that  purpose,  it  may  be  deemed 


16 

expedient  to  impose  on  some  arUilr..  liigb,  on  others  moderate,  duties,  and  on  others,  none  at  all. 
But  (says  the  President)  there  are  "other  considerations'"  besides  the  mere  purpose  of  revenue, 
which  may  rightfully  control  discrimination,  and  constitute  a  rule  for  its  application.  And  what 
are  they  1  "  Considerations  of  domestic  policy,'  connected  with  our  manufactures."  Mark!  The 
President  speaks  of  our  manufactures ;  not  the  manufactures  of  New  England,  or  New  York,  or 
Pennsylvania,  but  our  manufactures:  thus  nationalizing  this  great  interest. 

So,  then,  the  policy  which  protects  "our  manufactures"  may  form  the  ground  of  discrimina- 
tion, and,  of  course,  may  justify  the  imposition  of  high  duties  on  some  articles,  moderate  duties  on 
others,  and  on  others,  not  needing  protection,  no  duties  at  all. 

But,  asks  some  opponent  of  protection,  Does  riot  the  President  say  that  the  duties  must  be  laid 
"  with  a  distinct  reference  to  the  wants  of  the  Treasury  1"  and  yet  you  make  him  Fay  that  they 
may  be  laid  with  a  distinct  reference  to  the  protection  of  manufactures--.  Do  you  not  make  him. 
inconsistent  with  himself?  By  no  means.  The  duties  may  be  laid  with  a  distinct  reference  to 
both  these  objects.  A  reference  to  the  mere  wants  of  the  Treasury  will  involve  considerations 
only  as  to  the  aggregate  amount  of  duties  to  be  levied,  and  such  discrimination  as  shall  have  re- 
spect to  the  best  means  of  raising  that  aruoimt.  The  Government  may  not,  for  example,  levy 
forty  millions,  when  the  wants  of  the  Treasury  require  but  twenty.  Bnt,  in  levying  these  twenty 
millions,  it  may  look  distinctly  at  the  other  object,  and  so  apportion  the  amount  among  the  various 
articles  of  importation  as  to  discourage  the  importation  of  some  which  come  in  competition  with  our 
own  manufactures,  while  the  importation  of  others  is  left  comparatively  free. 

Thus  the  leading  purpose  may  be  revenue — a  purpose  which  exclusively  controls  as  to  the 
tlmount  to  be  raised ;  while  there  may  be  another  purpose — that  of  discriminating  for  protection — 
which  controls  as  to  Imo  that  amount  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  several  art  ides  of  importa- 
tion. Thu  is  plainly  the  sentiment  of  the  message;  and  this  is  discrimination  fur  protection,  in- 
volving the  great  principle  for  which  the  friends  of  the  protecting  policy  have  ever  contended. 

We  have,  Mr.  Speaker,  arrived  at  a  momentous  crisis  in  reference  to  the  protecting  policy. 
The  great  interests  which  that  policy  has  lon^  cherished  have  not,  as  yet,  felt  the  heaviest  blows 
aimed  at  them  by  the  compromise  act  of  the  V5d.  of  March,  1833.  Under  that  act,  four-tenths  only 
of  the  excess  of  duties  over  20  per  cent,  have  hitherto  been  abated,  and  that  by  the  gradual  pro- 
cess of  biennial  reductions  of  one-tenth,  running  through  a  period  of  eight  years.  One-half  of  the 
remaining  six-tenths  is  to  be  taken  off  on  the  1st  day  of  January,  1842,  and  I  hi1,  remaining  three 
tenths  on  the  1st  of  July  next.  Thus,  within  a  little  more  than  six  months  from  this  time,  a  re- 
duction is  to  be  made  greater  by  one  half  than  the  whole  reduction  which  has  taken  place  since 
the  2d  of  March,  1833. 

And  now,  sir,  when,  under  the  operation  of  this  experiment  upon  the  power  of  endurance  of  the 
interests  hitherto  deemed  worthy  the  guardian  and  fostering  care  of  the  Government,  these  tre- 
mendous turns  of  the  screw  are  about  to  be  made,  what  is  it  proposed  to  do  1  Why,  sir,  to  take 
away  the  whole  subject  from  the  Committee  on  Manufactures,  the  natural  guardian  of  these  in- 
terests, and  send  it  to  a  committee,  the  natural  range  of  whose  inquiries  involves  no  investigation 
into  the  claims  of  those  interests,  an-1  which  has  been  constituted  with  no  view  whatever  to  their 
protection.  To  do  this  would  be,  in  effect,  to  say  that  we  will  have  no  such  investigation.  And 
are  we  prepared  for  this  7  Shall  the  present  session  pass  without  an  examination  of  this  subject  ? 
Are  we  to  sit  down  and  quietly  submit  to  the  operation  of  the  act  of  the  23d  Congress,  which 
struck,  in  advance,  the  blow  under  which,  without  the  interposing  arm  of  Congress,  many  of  the 
protected  interests  will  reel  and  stagger  on  the  1st  of  July  next?  May  not.  this  Congress  be  sup- 
posed better  to  know  with  how  heavy  a  hand  these  interests  will  now  bear  to  be.  pressed,  than  the 
Congress  which  sat  here  nine  years  ago?  Did  that  Congress  enjoy  the  exclusive  privilege  of  le- 
gislating in  regard  to  the-e  great  and  vital  interests  for  all  future  time?  Was  that  one  stroke  of 
nullification  to  inflict  a  perpetual  paralysis  upon  the  "  American  system  ?"  No,  sir;  no.  There 
is  no  such  power  in  that  "  compromise."  This  27th  Congress  is  to  legislate  with  no  such  shackles. 
The  people  have  sent  us  here  to  consider  the  present  condition  of  the  country  ;  to  inquire  into  the 
operation  of  existing  laws  upon  all  its  great  interests — agricultural,  commercial,  and  manufactur- 
ing— and  to  adapt  our  legislation  to  the  protection  of  ihose  interest'?.  To  abandon  any  of  them  blindly 
to  the  perpetual  control  of  former  legislation  is  to  abandon  our  duty — to  betray  the  trusts  which 
the  Constitution  and  the  country  have  confided  to  us.  Especially  is  this  true  with  regard  to  the 
interest  involved  in  the  question  now  before  us.  For  half  a  century,  it  has  been  our  policy  to 
cherish  it  as  among  the  cardinal  interests  of  the  country.  The  second  act  passed  by  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  expressly  asserted  its  claim  to  "encouragement  and  protection." 
To  foster  and  sustain  this  interest  was  deemed  by  the  men  of  the  Revolution,  whose  wise 
and  patriotic  counsels  infused  its  spirit  so  largely  into  our  early  legislation,  to  lie  essential  to  the 
maintenance  of  our  independence,  and  the  full  development  of  the  resources  of  our  emancipated 
country.  I  have  sketched  the  history  of  that  policy  through  successive  administrations  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  shown  how  steadily  they  have  acted  on  the  principle  that  it  was  to  be  the  settled 
and  enduring  policy  of  the  country.  A  just  Government  will  not  treat  lightly  the  pledge  implied 
in  such  a  course  of  policy,  especially  when  it  is  considered  how  extensively  the  skill,  and  industry, 
and  capital  of  the  country  have  adapted  themselves  to  this  policy.  If  I  could  avail  mysrlf  of  the 


IT 

statistics  obtained  in  the  process  of  taking  the  late  census,  (which  are  not  yet  published,)  I  might 
show  what  extensive  investments  have,  upon  the  faith  of  a  continuance  of  the  protective  policy,* 
been  made  in  manufacturing  establishments,  and  in  various  departments  of  productive  industry  de- 
pendent on  them.  The  results,  even  of  the  imperfect  examinations  which  have  been  made,  will, 
I  doubt  not,  astonish  the  country,  when  they  shall  have  been  fully  spread  out  before  it.* 

There  is  one  of  these  results  in  a  branch  of  investment  in  which  my  constituents  are  especially 
interested,  which  I  am  enabled,  by  an  examination  of  the  returns  in  the  Department,  of  State,  to 
present  to  the  House,  and  which  furnishes  an  argument  for  a  continuance  of  the  protective  policy, 
which  I  am  sure  must  strongly  commend  itself  to  the  judgments  of  all  who  hear  me.  I  allude  to 
the  wool-growing  interest. 

There  were  in  the  United  States  in  1840,  according  to  the  returns  of  the  marshals,  19,311,374 
sheep.  The  present  number  may  be  computed  at  not  less  than  twenty  millions.  It  probably  ex- 
ceeds that.  Indeed,  the  number  returned  by  the  marshals  was  probably  below  the  true  num- 
ber in  1840.  The  capital  invested,  estimating  the  sheep  at  $2  a  head,  and  the  land  necessa- 
ry for  their  subsistence — being  at  the  rate  of  one  acre  for  three  sheep — at  $12  per  acre,  would 
amount  to  $120,000,000  ;  to  which  should  be  added  the  investments  necessary  for  the  support  of 
those  engaged  in  the  care  of  the  sheep,  the  clipping  of  the  wool,  and  its  transportation  to  market, 
amounting,  probably,  to  $10,000,000  more. 

The  annual  product  of  wool,  at  an  average  of  two  and  a  half  pounds  a  head,  is  fifty  millions  of 
pounds. 

Of  these  20,000,000  of  sheep,  Vermont,  with  a  population  of  but  292,000  souls,  has  1,681,819, 
being  an  average  of  five  and  three-quarters  to  every  man,  woman,  and  child,  in  the  Slate.  The 
capital  invested,  upon  the  basis  of  the  estimate  ol  $130,000,000  for  the  whole  country,  is  about 
$11,000,000— equivalent  to  $38  to  every  soul  in  the  State. 

Of  the  20,000,000  of  sheep,  r\Tew  England,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Ohio,  have  over 
13,000,000. 

The  owners  of  this  amount  of  capital  are  cultivators  of  the  soil.  The  evils  which  have  been 
supposed  by  some  to  be  inseparably  connected  with  labor  in  manufacturing  establishments,  it  will 
not  be  pretended  attach  to  the  employment  of  the  shepherd.  All  the  influences  connected  with 
this  employment  are  the  most  favorable  to  moral  purity  and  genuine  independence ;  and  I  may 
proudly  point  to  the  well-known  character  of  the  people  of  my  own  State,  as  evidence  of  the  truth 
of  this  assertion. 

The  claim',  on  the  score  of  justice,  of  the  people  who  have  made  such  large  investments,  to  a 
legislation  which  shall  not  abandon  them,  is  too  obvious  to  need  comment.  I  pass  to  the  broader 
view  of  the  subject,  which  regards  the  wool-growing  interest  as  a  national  concent. 

Wool  is  a  raw  material  of  vast  importance  in  a  national  point  of  view.  It  is  a  leading  object 
in  the  protecting  policy  to  render  our  country  independent  of  foreign  countries  in  time  of  war,  as 
to  articles  of  indispensable  necessity  and  comfort  to  the  people  at  large,  as  well  as  to  the  troops 
engaged  in  our  defence.  In  these  respects,  the  various  forms  of  woollen  manufactures  are  second  to 
none  which  our  soil  and  our  industry  can  produce.  It  is  a  fact  which  ought  to  be  remembered,  that, 
at  the  commencement  of  the  last  war,  we  found  ourselves  dependent  on  our  enemy  for  munitions 
of  war  and  clothing  for  our  armies — supplies  of  which  were,  to  a  considerable  extent,  obtained 
through  an  illicit  commerce  with  that  enemy.  The  price  of  wool  rose  during  the  war  to  two  and 
three  dollars  a  pound,  and  of  woollen  cloths  to  ten,  twelve,  fifteen,  and  eighteen  dollars  a  yard. 

Can  any  wise  statesman,  in  this  view  of  the  subject,  be  indifferent  to  the  great  woollens  interest, 
both  manufacturing  and  agricultural,  which  has  come  into  being  under  the  combined  influences  of 
".he  last  war  and  the  protecting  legislation  which  followed  it?  Shall  we  learn  no  wisdom  by  the 
things  we  have  suffered  1  Can  we  shut  our  eyes  to  the  possibility — the  probability,  even — of  war  1 
In  other  respects  we  do  not^  and  why  should  we  in  this  1  We  expend  millions,  annually,  upon 
fortifications;,  ships  of  war,  the  procuring  of  ordnance  an-d  ordnance  stores,  and  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  various  descriptions  of  arms  suited  to  our  defence.  In  this  we  act  wisely — at  least  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  maxims  which  have  hitherto  governed  the  world.  We  regard  these  preparations 
as  indispensable  ;  and  yet  have  we  no  wisdom  to  see  that  the  fostering  and  sustaining  of  the  inte- 

*  Since  this  speech  was  delivered,  I  have  ascertained,  from  an  examination  at  the  Department  of  State,  that  the 
total  of  capital  invested  directly  in  manufacturfs,  (not  including  the  dependent  interests.)  in  the  United  States,  as  re- 
turned by  the  marshals,  amounti-d  in  1840,  to  the  sum  of  TWO  HUNDRED  AND  SIXTY-SEVEN  MILLIONS  SEVEN  HUNDRED 
AND  TWENTY  six  THOUSAND  FIVE  HUNDRED  AND  SEVKHTY-NiNE  DOLLARS,  distributed  among  the  States  and  Terri- 
tories, as  follows : 

Maine       -  -'          -     «7, 105,620 

New  Hampshire  -  -       9,252,448 

Massachusetts  -      41,774,446 

Rhode  Island  -      10,696,136 

Connecticut  -      13,669,139 

Vermont   -  -       4,326,440 

New  York  •     55,232,779 

New  Jersey  -     11.517,582 

Pennsylvania  -      31,815,105 

Delaware  -  -       1,589,215 


Maryland  -          -  86,450,284  I  Ohio       -  -  -    £16,905,257 


Virginia    -  -  -  ll,36u,861 

North  Carolina  -  -  3,838,900 

South  Carolina  -  -  3,216,970 

Georgia     .  -  -  2,899,565 

Alabama   -    .  -    .       -  .  2,130,064 

Mississippi  -  -  1,797,727 

Louisiana  -  -  -  6,430,699 

Tennessee  -  -  3,731,580 

Kentucky  -  -  5.945,259 


Indiana  -  -  •  4,132,043 

Illinois   -  •  -  3,136,512 

Misssuri-  -  -  2,704,405 

Arkansas  -  -  424,467 

Michigan  -  -  3,112,240 

Florida   -  -  -  669,490 

Wiskonsan  -  -  635,926 

Iowa        •  -  -  199,645 

District  of  Columbia  -  1,005.7^5 


18 

rest  to  which  I  have  referred,  as  well  as  the  iron  and  other  interests,  are  also  indispensable  T  We 
have  committed  to  us  the  power  to  make  war;  and  we  may  be  involved  in  war  with  the  most 
powerful  nations  in  the  world  ;  and  yet  the  opponents  of  the  protecting  policy  would  disarm  us  ol 
the  power  possessed  by  every  other  nation  upon  the  face  of  the  earth — that  of  developing  and  ma- 
luring  all  the  resources  necessary  to  the  putting  forth  of  their  utmost  strength  in  the  conflicts  we 
may  have  with  them. 

Let  us,  then,  carry  out  the  policy  which  has  not  only  brought  into  existence  manufacturing  es- 
tablishments connected  with  the  wool-growing  interest,  which  need  continued  protection,  but 
which  has  produced  large  investments  in  the  production  of  the  raw  material,  which  it  would  be 
unjust  to  abandon,  and  which  cannot  be  abandoned  without  the  hazard  of  our  being  again  placed 
in  a  state  of  humiliating  dependence  in  the  event  of  another  war. 

And,  sir,  we  ought  to  protect  wool,  and  its  manufactures,  not  only  to  save  from  sacrifice  pre- 
sent investments,  but  with  a  view  to  an  increased  production  in  these  departments  of  industry.  A 
just  regard  to  our  safety  and  our  independence  demands  that  the  almost  boundless  capacities  of 
our  country  in  these  respects  should  be  developed  and  improved. 

I  have  spoken  of  wool  as  an  important  raw  material.  My  remarks  are  applicable,  of  course,  to 
the  raw  materials  connected  with  the  manufacture  of  iron  and  other  manufactures  of  great  national 
importance,  in  regard  to  which  we  ought  to  be  independent  of  the  world. 

There  is  one  important  raw  material  for  which  we  are  not  dependent.  I  refer  to  cotton.  But 
what  laid  the  foundation  of  this  independence1?  Sir,  it  was  protection.  By  the  revenue  law  of 
1739,  cotton  was  protected  by  a  duty  of  three  cents  a  pound,  which  has  been  continued  ever  since. 
It  is  asserted  that  it  does  not  need  the  duty  now.  Whether  this  be  true  or  not,  it  needed  it  then  ,- 
and  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  it  will  not  again  require  it.  The  cotton  interest  grew  up 
under  that  protection.  And  should  not  the  growers  of  cotton  be  willing  to  aid,  by  protecting  le- 
gislation, in  giving  stability  to  the  great  wool-growing  interest,  which  needs  like  protection  1  Will 
the  South  be  insensible  to  this  appeal,  because,  unlike  the  wool-growers,  the  cotton  planters  are 
not  dependent  for  their  market  upon  the  demand  of  our  own  country  1  Can  the  fact  that  Great 
Britain  does  not  receive  a  pound  of  our  wool  in  exchange  for  the  millions  of  her  woollen  fabrics 
sold  to  us  annually,  while  she  takes  millions  of  the  Southern  staple,  have  the  effect  of  rendering  the 
South  indifferent  to  the  claims  of  the  wool-grower  upon  the  fostering  care  of  a  wise  and  an  impar- 
tial legislation  1  Have  we  not  "  one  country  and  one  destiny  ?"  And  shall  any  part  of  this  "one 
country"  find,  in  its  exemption  from  excluding  foreign  legislation,  a  motive  for  indifference  to  the 
interests  of  another  part,  which  is  subjected  to  the  injurious  effects  of  that  legislation  ?  Nothing, 
it  seems  to  me,  can  be  more  selfish  and  monopolizing  than  this,  unless  it  be  that  British  legisla- 
tion which,  for  the  sake  of  employing  British  looms  and  spindles  and  pauper  labor,  receives,  upon 
a  small  duty,  the  great  Southern  staple,  while,  to  protect  the  landed  interest  of  the  kingdom,  it 
excludes,  or  burdens  with  excessive  duties,  all  the  productions  of  our  Northern,  Middle,  and 
Western  agriculture. 

For  the  purpose  of  showing  the  effects  of  foreign  legislation  upon  the  cotton  interest,  compared 
with  other  interests,  I  present  the  following  statements,  drawn  from  official  reports,  of  the  exports 
of  articles  the  growth,  produce,  and  manufacture  of  the  United  States.  They  furnish  materials 
for  comparisons  in  the  following  particulars : 

I.  The  average  annual  export  of  cotton  for  five  years,  ending  September  30,  1840,  compared 
with  the  average  export  of  all  other  productions  of  the  United  States — 

1.  To  all  the  world; 

2.  To  Great  Britain  and  her  dependencies ; 

3.  To  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 

II.  The  average  annual  export  of  cotton  for  the  five  years  referred  to,  compared  with  the  ar- 
erage  annual  exports  of  all  the  agricultural  products  of  the  United  State?  used  for  the  sustenance 
of  man — 

1.  To  all  the  world; 

2.  To  Great  Britain  and  her  dependencies ; 

3.  To  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 

STATEMENT. 

Average  annual  export  fur  1833,  '37,  '38,  '39,  and  '40,  t<i  all  countries,  of  all  articles  flic  growth,  produce, 

or  manufacture  of  the  United  States  ..-.--....  $102,588,69? 
Average  annual  export  of  COTTON  to  all  countries  ...... 

Domestic  exports,  other  than  cotton          .......  $38,350,667 

Average  annual  exports  of  all  domestic  productions  lo  Great  Britain  and  her  depend  encieg  *    $60,200,131 

Average  export  of  COTTON  to  the  *om   countries          -          -          -          -          -          -          -  45,560,647 

Exports,  other  than  cotton  - 

Averag"  annual  exports  of  all  domestic  productions  to  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland    -  •    $53,295,933 

Average  annual  export  of  COTTON  to  same  countries      ------  -      45,515,137 

,  other  than  cotton  -          -          -          -.          -          -          -          -          •  $7,780,796 


19 


Average  annual  exports,  for  1836,  '37,  '38,  '39,  and  '40,  of  animals,  and  the  product  of  ani- 
mals, and  vegetable  food. 


Articles  exported. 

To  all  countries. 

To  G.  Britain  & 
dependencies. 

To  England, 
Scotland,  and 
Ireland. 

Beef,  tallow,  hides,  and  horned  cattle 
Butter  and  cheese      ... 

$501,482 
139,340 

8291,608 
39,616 

866,052 
2,735 

Pork,  bacon,  hams,  lard,  and  live  hogs 
Horses,  mules,  and  sheep 

1,533,522 
337,373 

386,072 
288,410 

,               355 

Wheat  .... 

363,413 

358,495 

139,338 

Flour    .... 
Indian  corn  and  meal           -                                        "     - 

5,447,373 
868,864 

2,608,385 
489,885 

955,523 
12,714 

Ship  bread       ...                      ... 

306,319 

170,064 

95 

Rye,  rye  meal,  oats,  and  other  small  grain,  and  pulse,  potatoes, 

and  apples    --..-... 

339,572 

225,544 

21,238 

Rice                

2,196,424 

495,739 

274,669 

$11.766,615 

$5,353,818 

81,474,719 

Comparison  of  the  export  of  cotton  with  the  results  of  the  foregoing  (able. 

Average  export  of  COTTON,  for  the  five  years i  specified,  to  all  countries         •          •          -  -  864,238,225 

Average  exports  of  all  agricultural  productions,  consisting  of  animals,  and  the  product  of  animals,  and 
vegetable  food        -....-....-...      11,766,615 

852,471,610 


Average  export  of  COTTON  to  Great  Britain  and  her  dependencies 

Average  exports  of  the  specified  agriculiural  productions  to  the  same  countries 

Excess  of  cotton  export       ........ 


845,560,647 
5,353,818 

840,206,829 


Average  export  of  COTTON  to  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland 
Average  exports  of  the  specified  productions  to  the  same  countries 

Excess  of  cotton  export        ...... 


815,515,137 

1,474,719 

•   844,040,418 

Let  us  now  look  a  moment  at  these  results.      They  are — 

1.  Thatt.de  single  article  of  cotton  constituted  a  little  over  sixty-two  and  a  half  per  cent. 
(62.6)  of  the  whole  of  our  domestic  exports  to  all  foreign  countries — being  $25,887,558  more 
than  the  exports  of  all  ihe  other  products  of  the  fisheries,  the  forests,  the  agriculture,  and  the 
manufactures  of  the  entire  Union. 

2.  That,  of  nil  our  domestic  exports  to  Great  Britain  and  her  dependencies,  cotton  constituted 
over  seventy-five  and  one-half  per  cent.,  (75.66) — being  $30,921,163  more  than  the  exports  to 
that  kingdom  of  all  our  other  productions. 

3.  That,  of  the  $45,560, 164  of  our  export  of  cotton  to  Great  Britain  and   her  dependencies, 
$45,515,137  went  to  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  ($43,475,484  of  it  to  England,)  as  a  raw 
material,  to  be  sent  to  this  and  other  couuiiies  in  the  form  of  manufactures,  at  an  advance  upon  its 
cost  of  from  100  to  2,000  per  cent.,  for  ihe  benefit  of  British  capital  and  labor. 

4.  That  that  $45,515,137  worth  of  cotton,  exported  to  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  consti- 
tuted more  than  eighty -five  per  tent.  (85.4)  of  all  our  domestic  exports  to  those  countries;  ex- 
ceeding all  such  exports  to  them,  other  than  cotton,  by  the  sum  of  $37,734,341. 

5.  That  our  exports  to  all  countries,  of  those  productions  of  the  agriculture  of  the  United  States 
consisting  of  animal?,  the  product  of  animals,  and  vegetable  food,  being  $11,766,615,  constituted 
but  about  eleven  and  one-half  per  cent.  (11.47)  of  our  whole  domestic  exports. 

6.  That  the  exports  to  Great  Britain  and  her  dependencies  of  all  the  productions  of  our  agri- 
culture just  mentioned,  being  $5,353,818,  constituted  but  about  nine  per  cent.  (8.9)  of  our  whole 
domestic  exports  to  the  same  countries. 

7.  That  our  export  of  COTTON  to  all  countries  was  five  and  a  half  times  the  amount  of  all  our 
exports  of  the  agricultural  productions  specified  in  the  table  just  presented. 

8.  That  our  exports  of  COTTON   to  Great   Britain   and  her  dependencies    ($45,560,647)  were 
eight  and  one-half  times  the  amount  of  our  whole  export  to  that  kingdom  and  its  dependencies  of 
all  the  productions  of  our  agriculture  specified  in  the  table,  and  more  than  fifteen  times  the  amount 
of  our  whole  export  of  wheat  and  flour  to  that  kingdom  and  its  dependencies,  including  the  ex- 
port of  $963,714  worth  of  those  articles  through  her  North  American  colonies,  for  the  benefit  of 
her  navigation.* 

*This  g963,714  of  wheat  and  flour  was  the  average  of  five  years.  The  amount  during  the  first  of  those  years  was  but 
$5282,233,  while  in  the  last  it  was  £3,028,589.  So  the  amount  of  wheat  and  flour  exported  direct  to  England,  Scotland, 
and  Ireland,  during  the  first  of  the  averaged  vears,  was  buj  81,134,  while  in  the  last  it  was  84,072,952— showing  the 
fluctuations  produced  by  the  operation  ofthe  British  corn  laws. 

Wheat  is  admitted  into  the  North  American  colonies  duty  free,  to  be  manufactured  and  shipped  to  foreign  countries 
in  British  vessels ;  and  all  our  productions  are  admitted  into  certain  free  "  warehousing  ports"  of  those  colonies  fre» 
of  duty,  to  be  re-exported  as  colonial  produce  in  British  bottoms  for  the  benefit  of  British  navigation 


20 

9.  That  of  the  $5,353,818  of  our  agricultural  exports  to  Great  Britain  and  her  dependencies, 
specified  in  the  table,  but  $1,474,719  was  exported  directly  to  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland, 
being  three  and  one- fourth  per  cent,  only  of  the  average  amount  of  cotton  exported,  during  the 
years  specified,  to  those  countries ;  fiom  which,  nevertheless,  we  received,  during  the  same  years, 
merchandise,  principally  British  manufactures,  averaging  $53,619,434  per  annum. 

Upon  these  results  I  make  no  comment.  They  are  sufficiently  startling  to  awaken  the  atten- 
tion of  the  country,  especially  those  portions  of  it  whose  interests  are  to  be  sacrificed,  under  the  pre- 
tence of  "  free  trade,"  for  the  benefit  of  the  cotton-growing  interest — the  only  interest  in  the  United 
States  which  the  policy  of  foreign  nations,  and  especially  of  Great  Britain,  will  permit  to  enjoy 
that  freedom. 

I  have  spoken  in  general  terms  of  foreign  legislation   affecting  the  agricultural  staples  whose 
export  bears  such  a  small  proportion  to  that  of  cotton.     Let  me  specify  by  a  reference  to  the  Brit- 
ish tariff  of  duties  on  the  leading  articles. 

Articles  Raieofduty. 

Beef.percwt.      -  -  -  -  -          -  -  •'  -  £0  12*.  Od.     equal      »2  88 

Horned  cattle,  prohibited. 

Butter,  per  cwi.  -          -          -          -  -          -          -          ^          -          -  -100 

Cheese,  per  cwt.  -.«....-  .0106 

Pork,  salted,  per  cwt. 0  12    0 

Pork,  smoked,  per  cwt.  -  -          -  -          -          -          -          -          -  -108 

Bacon  and  hams,  per  cwt.         -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -180  672 

Sausages,  per  pound       ----.....-004  8 

Swiiie,  prohibited. 
Sheep,       do. 
Wheat  and  flour, 

RytrVe TeaTlnT&ley,  \  ^"^  ™^  nearly  at  famine  prices.* 

Buckwheat,  oats,  and  oat  meal,  peas  and  beans,   J 

Rice,percwt. 0  15  0  3  60 

Rice  from  British  possessions,  per  cwt  -  -  -  -  -  -  -     0    1  0 

COTTON,  per  cwt.,  -          -          -  -          -  -  -          -  -          -02  11 

Cotton,  the  produce  of,  and  imported  from,  British  possessions,  per  cwt.  0    0  6  12 

It  is  unnecessary  to  ask  attention  to  the  immense  difference  between  the  duty  on  cotton  and 
the  duties  on  the  other  productions  of  our  agriculture  to  which  I  have  called  the  attention  of  the 
House.  The  discrimination,  however,  between  the  duty  on  our  cotton,  low  as  it  is,  and  that 
which  is  the  produce  of,  and  imported  from,  British  possessions,  ought  to  attract  the  attention  of 
our  cotton  growers,  as  a  premonitory  symptom  of  what  they  may  expect  from  the  indicated  policy 
of  Great  Britain  to  supply  herself  with  cotton  from  her  East  India  possessions.  As  an  indicalion 
of  the  success  of  this  policy,  I  will  refer  to  a  statement  of  importations  of  cotton  from  British  In- 
dia, made  in  an  article  which  I  find  in  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine  for  September,  1841,  on  the 
subject  of  "the  commerce  of  British  India,"  which  is  stated  in  the  table  of  contents  to  have  been 
written  by  a  South  Carolinian. 

"  In  1831  (says  the  writer)  the  imports  of  India  cotton  into  EnglarijJ  were  75,627  bales ;  in  1835, 116,153  bales ;  and 
la  1840  we  have  216,784  bales — nearly  trebled  in  nine  years.  The  ifnportaliun  iu  1839.  was  47,233,959  pounds;  and 
in  1840, 76,703,295  pounds— an  increase  without  a  parallel  in  the  history  of  this  valuable  commodity.  In  the  first 
quarter  of  1840,  the  imports  were  28,611  bales  ;  and  in  the  same  term  of  "1841,  we.  find  35,433— an  increase  of  7.922 
bale*." 

Mr.  Speaker,  the  people  who  draw  from  the  soil  of  this  great  country  the  means  of  human  sub- 
sistence— especially  the  UHAIX  GROWING  portion  of  them,f  are  beginning  to  inquire  what  proportion 
of  the  people  of  these  United  States  are  engaged  in  the  production  of  the  privileged  export.  Why, 
they  ask,  should  the  boundless  capacities  of  the  soil  and  the  industry  of  the  North,  the  Middle,  and 
the  West,  b«  thus  restrained — thus  made  to  submit  to  the  cotton  growing  power  1  They  demand  to 
know  why  they  are  to  be  compelled  to  consume  foreign  manufactures,  while  payment  for  them 
cannot  be  made  in  the  productions  of  their  own  soil  and  industry.  They  ask  loudly,  and  will 
yet  ask  more  loudly,  why  this  perpetually  exhausting  process  must  go  on  for  the  joint  benefit  of 
European  capitalists  and  American  cotton  growers  ?  The  people  of  whom  I  speak  want  a  market, 
and  a  steady  market  for  the  fruits  of  their  labor.  If  they  cannot  have  it  abroad,  they  ask  from  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  such  legislation  as  shall  give  it  to  them  at  home — legislation  which 
shall  give  a  uniform  and  efficient  protection  to  manufacturing  industry,  and  save  if.  and  them,  toge- 
ther, from  the  effects  of  a  selfish,  monopolizing,  crushing  foreign  legislation. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  do  not  know  that  the  facts  and  arguments  and  appeals  submitted,  or  to  be  sub- 
mitted in  the  debate  on  this  question,  can  make  any  impression  upon  the  power  that  rules  this 

*  The  duties  vary  upon  a  sliding  scale,  corresponding  with  the  prices  of  grain— rising  as  the  price  falls,  and  falling 
as  the  price  rises.  Thus,  when  the  price  of  wheat  per  quarter  (eight  bushels)  is  at  or  over  73  shillings  sterling,  (equal 
to  $17  52,  reckoning  50  pence  to  the  dollar,)  the  duty  is  but  one  shilling  sterling  per  quarter.  As  the  price  of  wheat 
falls,  the  duty,  by  a  nearly  corresponding  process,  rises,  so  that  it  equals  the  price  when  that  descends  to  43  shillings. 

The  duty  on  flour  is  regulated  by  the  same  rule,  the  barrel  of  flour  being,  by  law,  deemed  equal  to  3Si  gallons  of 
wheat. 

Th«  same  mode  is  adopted  of  increasing  or  diminishing  the  duties  upon  Indian  corn  and  other  grains,  though  not 
precisely  in  the  same  ratio,  and,  of  course,  not  with  reference  to  the  same  prices 

The  result  is,  as  intended,  »n  almost  total  exclusion  of  foreign  grains,  flour,  and  meal,  when  at  moderate  prices,  and 
their  ad  minion  only  in  time*  of  extreme  scarcity. 

T  See  note  at  the  end. 


21 

nation.  But  there  is  one  argument  which  will  yet  make  an  impression,  and  that,  in  my  opinion, 
at  no  very  distant  day.  When  our  cotton  shall  come  to  be  excessively  burdened  by  the  British 
tariff,  or  utterly  excluded  from  the  British  market,  then  will  the  appeals  now  made  by  the  manu- 
facturing and  provision-raising  and  wool-growing  portions  of  the  country  be  remembered,  and  their 
force  felt. 

I  have  already  alluded  to  the  recent  efforts  to  extend  the  cultivation  of  cotton  in  British  India. 
The  cotton  growers,  it  is  evident,  are  aware  of  these  efforts,  and  of  the  success  which  has  attend- 
ed them.  Sir,  they  ought  to  awake  from  their  delusive  dreams  of  on  uninterrupted  and  perpetual 
demand  for  their  great  staple  in  the  British  market.  The"  policy  which  has  begun,  will  carry  on, 
and  carry  out,  the  movement  to  which  I  have  alluded.  And  this  is  rendered  the  more  certain  by 
the  consideration  that  the  motives  of  interest  in  which  it  originated  are  to  be  reinforced  by  those 
of.  high  moral  principle — a  principle  which  is  rapidly  gaining  strength  both  in  Europe  and  in 
America — urging  a  discontinuance  of  the  use  of  those  articles  which  are  the  production  of  forced 
and  unrequited  labor. 

It  may  be  well  for  the  South  to  consider,  in  this  view  of  the  matter,  whether  the  time  can  be 
very  far  distant  when  the  closing  of  British  ports  against  her  great  staple  shall  drive  her  to  the 
North  for  her  principal  market;  and  whether  it  is  not  wise,  as  well  as  patriotic,  for  her  now  to  aid 
in  giving  solidity  and  permanency  to  manufacturing  establishments,  and  success  to  the  numerous 
branches  of  productive  industry  which  are  dependent  on  them  for  support.  And  she  may  well 
consider,  also,  whether,  after  the  North  has  suffered  from  the  fluctuations  of  the  policy  which  to- 
day forces  her  into  manufactures,  and  to-morrow  forces  her  out,  she  will  feel  any  very  strong  in- 
ducements to  purchase  cotton  from  the  South,  when  she  can  get  it  as  cheap  elsewhere  ;  whether, 
when  she  is  asked,  as  she  certainly  will  be,  in  due  time,  to  protect  it  by  the  continuance  of  the 
present,  or  the  imposition  of  a  new  duly,  she  will  not  feel  very  much  inclined  to  leave  the  cottom- 
growing  interest  to  lake  care  of  itself. 

Mr.  Speaker,  it  gives  me  no  pleasure  thus  to  speak  of  the  probable  future.  Rather  would  I  hope 
that  the  South  will  abandon  its  hostility  to  the  protecting  policy ;  and  that,  under  the  operation  of 
that  policy,  adapted  by  wise  and  prudent  counsels,  and  in  a  spirit  of  impartial  justice,  to  the  pre- 
sent condition  of  the  various  interests  requiring  protection,  the  diversified  resources  of  this  great 
country  will  be  rapidly  developed,  and  its  East  and  West,  its  North  and  South,  be  more  strongly 
bound  together  by  the  ties  of  mutual  dependence,  and  urged  onward  in  a  noble  rivalry  of  industry, 
of  knowledge,  and  of  virtue,  to  the  attainment  of  a  high  and  a  glorious  destiny. 


NOTE. 

Having  referred  to  the  great  provision-raising  interest  as  justly  demanding  encouragement 
through  protection  to  manufactures,  it  may  be  useful  to  look  at  the  matter  a  little  more  in 
detail.  To  show  the  extent  of  that  interest,  and  the  portions  of  the  country  most  affected  by  the 
neglect  of  its  claims  to  our  consideration,  I  have  prepared  the  following  tables,  from  an  examina- 
tion which  I  have  been  permitted  to  make  of  the  corrected  returns  of  agricultural  statistics  in  the 
Department  of  State. 

The  first  table  exhibits  the  amount  of  the  articles  used  for  human  subsistence,  produced  in  each 
State  and  Territory,  so  far  as  they  are  included  in  the  returns,  except  the  "  value  of  produce  of 
market  gardeners  ;"  to  which  is  added  cotton,  to  show  the  amount  and  location  of  that  production. 
Oats  are  included  in  the  table,  because  they  are  used,  to  some  extent,  for  human  subsistence,  and, 
for  other  reasons,  bear  the  same  relation  to  this  subject  as  barley,  buckwheat,  &c.  Sheep  are 
also  included,  as  not  only  used  extensively  for  food,  but  especially  as  furnishing  a  raw  material 
for  an  essential  manufacture  of  great  national  importance. 

The  second  table  presents  the  leading  and  mo-t  important  articles  included  in  the  first — giving 
the  amount  of  each  in  one-third  of  the  States — that  is,  in  the  nine  States  which  give  to  each  of 
them  the  largest  ratio  of  production,  having  reference  to  population. 


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LIBRARY  FACILITY 


Table  shawms:  the  quantity  nf  wheat,  soru,  rye,  and  potatoes  ;  the  number  of  neat  cattle,  swine, 
and  sheep,  and  the  value  uf  butter  and  cheese,  in  the  nine  States  which  give  the  largest  ratio 
of  production  of  these  articles,  having  reference  to  population. 


WHEAT. 

CORN. 

No.  of  Las  i- 

No.  of  bush- 

8TATBS. 

Bushels. 

els  to  eac  i 

STATUS. 

Bushels. 

els  to  each 

person. 

person. 

Ohio 

16,571,661 

10.9 

Tennessee 

44,986,188 

54.3 

Michigan 

5i,  157,  108 

10.1 

Kentucky 

39,847,120 

51.1 

Virginia 

10,109,71fi 

8.1 

Arkansas 

4,846,632 

•  50. 

Pennsylvania    - 

13,213,077 

7.7 

Illinois 

22,634,211 

47.5 

Maryland 

3,345,783 

7.1 

Missouri 

17,332,524 

45. 

Illinois 

3,335,393 

7. 

Indiana 

28,155,887 

41. 

Kentucky 

4,803,152 

6.2 

North  Carolina 

23,893,763 

31.7 

Indiana 

4,049,375 

5.9 

Virginia          -      •  - 

34,577,591 

27.9 

New  "V  ork 

12,286,418 

5.2 

Ohio 

33,668,144 

22.2 

Total 

69,871,683 

Total 

249,942,060 

RYE. 

POTATOES. 

No  ol  bush- 

No. of  bush- 

STATED. 

.Bushels. 

els  to  each 

STATES. 

Bushels. 

els  to  each 

person. 

person. 

New  Jersey 

1,665,820 

4.5 

Vermont     *  - 

8,869,751 

30.4 

Pennsylvania    - 

6,613,873 

3.8 

New  Hampshire 

6,206,606 

21.5 

Connecticut 

734,424 

3.5 

Maine 

10,392,280 

20.5 

Kentucky      '   - 

1,321,373 

.7 

Connecticut    •• 

3,414,238 

16.3 

Maryland 

723,577               .5 

New  York 

30,123,614 

12.4 

New  York 

2,979,323               .2 

Michigan 

2,109,205 

9.9 

Virginia 

1,482,759               .2 

Massachusetts 

5,385,652 

7.3 

New  Hampshire 

308,148               .1 

New  Jersey    - 

2,072,069 

5.6 

Vermont 

230,993             0.8 

Pennsylvania 

9,535,663 

5.5 

Total 

16,060,330 

Total 

78,109,078 

NEAT  CATTLE. 

SWINE. 

STATES. 

No.  of  cattle. 

No.  to  each 

STATES. 

No.  of  swine. 

No.  to  each 

person. 

person. 

Arkansas 

188,786 

1.9 

Arkansas 

393,058 

4. 

Mississippi 

623,197 

1.7 

Tennessee 

2,926,607 

3.5 

Vermont 

384,341 

1.3 

Missouri 

1,271,161 

3.3 

Illinois 

626,274 

1.3 

Illinois 

1,495,254 

3.1 

Georgia 

884,414              t.3 

Kentucky 

2,310,533 

3. 

Missouri 

433,875              1.1 

Mississippi 

1,001,209 

2.7 

Alabama 

668,018                .1 

Alabama 

1,423,873 

2.4 

Louisiana 

381,248              l.l 

Indiana 

1,623,608 

2.4 

Kentucky 

787,098 

1. 

North  Carolina 

1,649,716 

2.2 

Total 

4,977,251 

Total 

14,095,019 

SHEEP. 

BUTTER  AND  CHEESE. 

8TATKS. 

No.  of  she-»p.     No.  to  each 

STATES. 

Value 

Amt.toeach 

b 

person. 

person. 

Vermont 

1,681,819 

5.8 

Vermont 

#2,008,737 

$6.88 

New  Hampshire 
New  York 

617,390 
5,118,777 

2.2 
2.1 

Connecticut   - 
New  Hampshire 

1,376,534 
1,638,643 

6.56 
5.76 

Connecticut 

403,462 

1.9 

New  York      - 

10,496,021 

5.49 

Ohio 

2,028,401 

1.3 

New  Jersey    - 

1,328,032 

3.56 

Kentucky 
Maine 

1,008,240 
649,264 

1.3 

1.3 

Massachusetts 
Maine 

2,373,299 
1,496,902 

3.22 
2.98 

Virginia 
Pennsylvania    - 

1,293,772 
1,767,620 

1. 
1. 

Pennsylvania 
Ohio               - 

3,187,292 
1,848,869 

1.85 
1.23 

Total 

14,568,745 

Total 

25,754,229 

UCSB  LIBRARY 

24 


A  comparison  of  the  results  of  the  two  tables,  in  regard  to  the  articles  specified  in  the  second, 
shows  that  the  production  of  those  articles  in   the  one-thirdtof  the  States  which   give  to  each  ot 
them  the  greatest  ratio  of  production,  is  — 
As  to  wheat,  84  per  cent,  of  its  whole  production  in  the  United  States. 

corn  6fi  do.  do.  do. 

rye  86  do.  '    do.  do. 

potatoes  72  do.  do.  do. 

cattle  33  do.  do.  do. 

swine  53  do.  do.  do. 

sheep  75  do.  do.  do. 

butter  and  cheese       76  do.  do.  do. 

It  is  evident,  from  a  glance  at  the  first  table,  that  the  production  of  oats,  barley,  and  buckwheat, 
in  the  nine  States  giving  the  largest  relative  production,  (being  in  the  North,  the  Middle,  and 
the  West,)  bears  as  large  a  proportion  to  their  production  in  the  whole  Union,  as  is  shown  above  in 
respect  to  tl:e  other  grains. 

It  is  needless  to  gay,  that  the  vast  region  northwest  of  the  river  Ohio  has  but  begun  to  develop 
its  immense  agricultural  resources.  It  u  capable  of  producing  enough,  especially  of  the  grains, 
and  particularly  of  WHEAT,  to  feed  twice  the  present  population  of  the  United  States. 

No  part  of  the  country  is  more  interested  in  the  protecting  policy  than  arc  the  people  of  the 
Northwestern  States  and  Territories.  They  have  no  steady  foreign  market,  and^wc/i  an  one  they 
probably  never  will  have  ;  for,  though  British  ports  should  be  thrown  open  to  grain,  as  they  are  to 
cotton,  the  grain  growers  can  have  no  assurance  that  they  will  long  remain  open.  They  want  a 
steady  home  market.  Will  the  Government  neglect  to  secure  it  to  them  by  abandoning  the 
policy  of  protection  —  protection  as  really  to  them  as  it  is  to  the  manufacturers  of  iron  and  broad- 
cloth? Shall  they  by  left,  with  the  manufacturing  interests,  to  the  sport  of  foreign  legislation  — 
the  sport  of  "  free  trade"  professions,  and  restricted  trade  practice?  The  cotton-raising  inter- 
est —  confined  mainly  to  five  States  of  this  Union*  —  says  -they  shall  be.  Impartial  justice  says 
they  shall  not.  Which  shall  prevail  1  Let  the  people  awake  from  their  party  dreams,  and  answer. 

*  An  examination  of  the  first  of  the  foregoing  tables  will  show  that  of  the  790,479,275  lljs  of  cotton,  663,198,438  Ibs. 
were  grown  in  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana—  more  than  87  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
production  of  the  United  States. 


